Linked
by Philyra912
Summary: [Not HBP compatible] When a Potions assignment has a rare and disturbing side effect on Draco and Hermione, they will learn more about each other than they ever wanted to know. Runnerup at Dangerous Liaisons Awards, Winner at Dragon's Bride Awards!
1. Of Potions and Partners

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe does not belong to me. If it did, I would not have to do my laundry at my parent's house. (That statement isn't as random as it seems. It was written back in May when I had come crawling home from my dorm with three bags of laundry because I'd run out of quarters. And food.)

A/N: This will be the first Harry Potter story I've posted. Therefore, please be patient with me if I mess up the technical end of posting chapters. I am terrible with technology, and computers seem to know this about me and prey on my weakness. I promise to do my best.

Chapter 1: Of Potions and Partners

"Hermione? _Hermione_!" Hermione Granger started, blinking across the table at the exasperated face of Ron Weasley, who was hurriedly shoving his just-completed Potions essay into his bag. Hermione realized that they were among the only remaining occupants of the Great Hall, meaning that she had once again read through breakfast and it was now time to go to class.

"Sorry, Ron. I was just reviewing the chapter on the potion we're going to begin today."

"I know, I _know_," he groaned as they made their way out of the Great Hall. "That's all you've been doing for two days." He narrowed his eyes at her book bag suspiciously. "How many times have you read that chapter?"

"Just enough to be comfortable with the information," she said evasively. "Where's Harry?" Ron glared at her attempt to change the subject.

"He went back to the common room to get a book he'd left there. How many times have you read it, Hermione?" he repeated. Hermione felt a blush rise in her cheeks.

"Five. It's a difficult chapter, Ron!" she protested when he made an exasperated and disbelieving exclamation.

"Where do you find time to read something that many times? Between all the classes you take, your Head Girl duties, all the bloody N.E.W.T.s preparation the teachers have given us . . ."

"You know I have to do well in Potions if I want to be accepted into a good Healer training program, Ron," she reminded him. They had had this conversation often this year, and it was only halfway through first term. Hermione suspected that Ron was having trouble adjusting to the idea that in less than a year they would have to begin living their adult lives, and he was therefore acting as childish as possible. He shrugged off his prefect responsibilities, procrastinated about his homework worse than ever, and whined endlessly over any show of responsibility or work ethic in others.

"So you've told me," he said sarcastically. "Now, since you've become an expert on the . . . Um . . ."

"_Partis Sensus_," Hermione supplied with her oft-taxed but (in her opinion) admirable patience.

"Yes, of course, the _Partis Sensus _potion. Maybe you could briefly review the subject with me. I was unable to clear enough time in my schedule to properly study the material." Ron gave her a winning smile. She rolled her eyes.

"You didn't read the chapter and you want me to tell you what it's about," Hermione translated wryly as they began descending the stairs into the dungeons. Ron's smile became roguish and endearing, and Hermione felt her heart leap ever so slightly. The feelings she had once harbored for Ron had finally begun to fade away, but the occasional lapse was inevitable, especially now that Ron had filled out his gangly frame, allowed his hair to grow long and curl past his ears, and learned to somewhat control his once-volatile temper.

"Can't keep things from you, Hermione. Now, come on, you've got thirty seconds to dazzle me. Go!" She gave a long-suffering sigh, brushed a tawny curl from her eyes, and hid a smile of resigned amusement as she began to recite the properties and uses for the potion they were about to study in Snape's class.

"The _Partis Sensus _potion is more commonly known as the Empathy Potion. Anyone who drinks from the same batch of potion will temporarily have an empathic link with one another, allowing them to feel what the other feels. It is useful in psychological Healing, allowing trained Healers to understand if patients they are treating are lying, or being evasive, or doing anything that might slow down their healing. It's an incredibly complex potion, requiring minute measurements so difficult to recreate from potion to potion that no two batches are exactly alike, which is why people must drink from the same potion to be connected empathically." They had reached to doorway to Snape's dungeon, and Hermione looked up at Ron with raised eyebrows. "Got it?"

"Sure," he said sarcastically. They walked in and seated themselves, Ron taking a seat beside Seamus Finnigan, and Hermione taking a chair at an empty table. Moments later, Harry rushed through the door, breathing hard, with his hair tousled and his glasses askew. He threw Ron and Hermione a quick, somewhat harassed smile, which was just crooked and endearing enough to make Lavender Brown giggle annoyingly, and sat down beside Neville Longbottom in the nearest seat to the door.

The last few stragglers entered the classroom and seated themselves, and everyone waited rather quietly and, in the Gryffindors' case, apprehensively, for Snape's arrival. Several minutes after the class was actually supposed to begin, Draco Malfoy sauntered in, his cool eyes quickly assessing the room while an arrogant smirk twisted his pale features. Hermione groaned inwardly as she realized the only empty seat in the room was the one beside her. Malfoy calmly and slowly made his way over to her table and seated himself, surprisingly, without feeling the need to insult her. A scant second later, Snape stormed into the classroom and stalked to his desk.

"Today we will begin the _Partis Sensus _potion. This is complex potion that far exceeds the skill of the Hogwarts student body and most of its faculty," he said scathingly. "To make matters inexpressibly worse, the Headmaster has just informed me that the N.E.W.T. testing date has been moved up, forcing me to alter my lesson plan for the year to accommodate it. This means that we will be unable to thoroughly discuss the theory behind the _Partis Sensus_ potion before making it. I can only hope that you behaved out of character and read the chapter that was assigned to you, because we will be beginning the potion-making process _today_." A collective groan echoed through the dungeon, and Hermione felt even more pleased with herself than usual. She cast a petulant glance at Malfoy, who unfortunately did not seem to be in the least upset or annoyed by Snape's announcement. If anything, his expression was one of detached amusement.

"To save my valuable time, we will have no more of the ridiculous partner-switching you are so fond of. You will be paired with the person sitting at your table. Begin!" Snape snapped, cutting off further groaning protest. Hermione turned to Malfoy with a scowl on her face that she hoped conveyed even a fraction of her displeasure.

"Well, well, Granger," he drawled, speaking to her for the first time since he'd sauntered so arrogantly into the room. "You do seem to be a foul mood this morning. Neglect to read the chapter, did we?" She opened her mouth in soundless indignation, fuming with the insult.

"I most certainly did not!" she exclaimed. "I suppose it's too much to hope for that _you_ read it as well?"

"Why on earth would I waste my time with such worthless drivel when I could be doing so many more . . ." He smirked almost lewdly, looking over her shoulder at something. " . . . _pleasurable_ things?" Hermione turned around and saw Pansy Parkinson waving back at Malfoy, giggling incessantly. Hermione suppressed a revolted shudder and pushed her chair back from the desk.

"Then just try to stay out of my way, Malfoy. I won't have you messing up my Potions grade because you were too busy snogging your nasty girlfriend to read the damned chapter." She pushed past him to the stock of potion ingredients Snape was setting out at the front of the room.

Malfoy watched silently as she juggled bottles and vials of ingredients in her arms and carted them back to the table, never, she fumed inwardly, offering to help her. She laid them out carefully and turned in her Potions book to the neatly marked page outlining the process. She read through the directions quickly and looked up only to find Malfoy carefully and skillfully measuring out the first ingredient.

"I thought you hadn't read the chapter!" she exclaimed, panic tingeing her voice as she thought of the fate of her Potions grade hanging by a thread in the hands of an ill-informed and apathetic Draco Malfoy.

"I never said that," he said as he carefully weighed his powdered dragon's scales, and, finding the amount to his satisfaction, added it to the caldron in front of him. He glanced up at her with an arrogant smirk. "Sometimes, Granger, I think you underestimate me." Hermione shook her head and reached for the next ingredient.

"Somehow, Malfoy, I don't think that's possible."


	2. Unexpected Side Effects

Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter universe. Sue me at your own risk, because all you'll get is a pile of student loans and a cat with three legs. I'm rather attached to the cat, but you can have all the loans you want.

A/N: Now that I know people are reading, let me outline my plan: I will try to update every few days, though I can't promise anything. The first two chapters have been done for a while, and I have the fourth chapter completed though not thoroughly edited. I also have scenes from later chapters written out because they wouldn't leave my head until I did. I will admit, however, to having trouble with Chapter 3. I know what needs to happen, but it's rough going because a lot of information needs to be outlined but not a lot of action takes place. Therefore, I have a question for my readers: Would it be unbearably boring if most of Chapter 3 was an excerpt from a book that Hermione is using to research the potion? Tell me your opinions as quickly as possible and I'll try to get the chapter out as soon as I can. Now, on to the story!

Chapter 2: Unexpected Side Effects

An hour later, Hermione and Malfoy were just finishing their potion. Despite the occasional trade of insults, the potion-making process had gone comparatively smoothly. He was knowledgeable about the potion and surprisingly attentive to detail, but she found that she would rather have a friendly but inept partner than a snide and arrogant but relatively competent one. Their potion was done before any other group even showed signs of wrapping up. Panicked questions and snapped admonishments filled the room as Hermione finished clearing the ingredients and seated herself beside Malfoy.

"I suppose we should wait for everyone else to finish up," she said, looking around and bouncing slightly in her chair with anticipation. "Oh, I hope we do all right. I need this to go well." Malfoy had his feet up on the desk (something no other student would dare to do in Snape's class) and was staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his head.

"Your potions _always _go well, Granger," Malfoy said in an exasperated voice. "Must you continue to nag us all to death with your constant fretting?"

"Well said, Mr. Malfoy." Malfoy glanced over casually and Hermione spun around to find Snape standing behind her.

"If you are quite finished lazing about during my class, Miss Granger, perhaps you might be willing to test your potion and possibly have a chance of passing this assignment?" Hermione blinked at him speechlessly, her mouth open but soundless. Malfoy slid his long legs off the table and straightened up with a small smirk as Snape smiled sourly at Hermione and stalked away.

"Well, you heard the man, Granger. How about you get off your ass and do some work around here?" He stood up and began pouring small doses of the potion into slim glass vials. She stood up and was about to let loose with a scathing retort when he placed one of the vials in her raised hand and gently tapped his own against it.

"Cheers, Granger. If this poisons me, my father will hold you entirely to blame." Before Hermione could respond, Malfoy had thrown back the potion with a grimace. Hermione did the same, and felt like grimacing herself. The potion tasted acrid and metallic, and she resisted the urge to make a very unladylike retching sound.

All the sudden, she felt a rush of penetrating, warm tingling wash through her body, beginning in her stomach and flooding out to her extremities. Following the not-unpleasant warmth came a strange sensation that at first she couldn't place. A few moments later, she recognized it as disdain, and a scant moment after that, recognized that it had not originated with her. Malfoy's emotions drifted inside her like changing tides, surging and receding, first dominated by expectation, then curiosity, then a wariness that told her he found the sensation as disquieting as she did.

"This is . . ." Malfoy began with a somewhat perplexed looked on his face.

"Surreal," Hermione supplied, which, she realized, was exactly what he was thinking. "I'm not sure I like this." Across the room, Ron was giving Hermione a concerned look. He mouthed 'Are you okay?', and she nodded with a small smile. Malfoy glanced back and forth between them.

"But you _do_ like_ him_, don't you, Granger?" Malfoy asked with a sly smile.

"I most certainly do not!" she exclaimed, but she could tell that he didn't believe her. She could _feel_ that he didn't.

"Oh, yes, you do," he argued. He glanced over at Ron one more time. "I think I'll tell him." Malfoy began to make a move to get out of his chair.

"Don't you dare!" she exclaimed, catching his wrist before he could get up. Suddenly, Hermione's world spun, and her chest was empty of air, as though the breath had been knocked out of her in a fall. She blinked her eyes . . . and found herself in another dungeon, not like any she had ever seen in Hogwarts, with rich tapestries on the walls and horrible-looking devices scattered about the room, some of which she recognized as tools for Dark magic. Most strangely of all, another part of her _did_ recognize the room. The same part of her was gripped with terror. She looked up and realized why.

"What have I told you about coming down here, Draco?" Lucius Malfoy asked in chilling voice. _Draco?_ Hermione looked down at her hands and would have gasped in shock if she could have, but she seemed to have no control over her body, if it _was_ her body. She was looking at the small, chubby hands of a child. Her skin was ghost pale, and it was not her own. She didn't understand how, but she seemed to be _inside_ Draco Malfoy. Judging from the size of his pale hands and the way his father towered over him, she guessed that he couldn't have been more than four or five. A memory, perhaps?

A moment later, she was too distracted to marvel at the phenomenon of experiencing another person's memory when Draco's terror overwhelmed her own curiosity. She suddenly realized that Lucius was standing directly over her.

"I'm sorry, father," she heard herself say in the trembling voice of a child. Lucius did not respond, his eyes cold and impassive.

"That's the last time you disobey me, Draco. I didn't want to have to do this, but you haven't left me any other choice." Lucius pulled his wand from the folds of his expensive robes and muttered something that Draco did not understand.

The pain that ripped through Hermione was beyond comprehension, beyond anything she had ever known or imagined. Her blood itself seemed to burn in her veins, and she felt as if every bone in her body had shattered into uncountable, razor-sharp shards that tore through muscles and tissue like shrapnel. Briefly she was aware of a scream that issued from her rapidly closing throat, a scream that was not her own but that of a tortured child. That thought and all others were quickly swept from her overloaded brain, and she was swallowed up by an agony so profound that she feared it might actually kill her.

Finally, the curse was lifted, leaving a deep ache in her bones and silent tears on her cheeks. She looked up at Lucius from her curled-up position on the floor and watched him approach with a calm stride and a disgusted sneer.

"You shame me Draco," Lucius spat, as though he were repulsed by the taste of the words. Even as fury seethed in Hermione's mind, she could feel young Draco's heart break in his small chest. "A Malfoy never cries," Lucius reminded his son with cold fury. His leg pulled back and when the silver toe of his polished boot connected with her temple, Hermione knew a blinding pain, then a blinding light, then only blindness.

Hermione's eyes – her real eyes, not those of a young and terrified Draco Malfoy – flew open and she was back in the Potions room, the buzz of chattering, blissfully ignorant students all around her and a much older, much angrier Draco Malfoy seated in front of her. His eyes, usually cold, distant, and arrogant, were now flinty with hatred and shame, heated and dark as melted pewter. She suddenly realized that her hand was still clutching his wrist, and she let go as though his skin scalded her. So tightly had she been squeezing him that her hand's imprint was still visible, first bloodless and impossibly whiter than his moon-pale skin, then angry and red. Behind her, she could vaguely hear Snape speaking, though his voice seemed blurry and far away.

"In a few very rare cases, when the skill of the potion makers is exceptionally high and their magic or their personal connection especially strong, the potion can have another effect besides a temporary empathic link. There are several documented cases of a deeper, more intimate connection resulting from this potion, in which one of the potion makers is transported into the most powerful and defining memories of the other. Once this occurs, the empathic link goes both ways. Though none here possess the skill or power required to produce this effect," Snape continued dryly with a sneer at the Gryffindors, "in case someone accidentally creates a truly perfect potion, I would suggest refraining from all physical contact with your partner until the effects wear off. The deeper connection is triggered by touch and once it has been made, it cannot be broken. A permanent empathic link will exist between the two people for the rest of their lives."

Hermione stared at Malfoy, her mouth open in mingled horror and shock. Malfoy looked less shocked than sullen and furious, but even as she gazed into his hate-filled eyes, she was reminded of another face, pale and silver-eyed, twisted with more evil and cruelty than she had ever witnessed in this particular Malfoy. She could feel his anger, his disgust, his tightly reigned-in fear, but even as she grew angry in response, she remembered feeling his pain, his terror, his innocent confusion. Indignant fury and wrenching pity battled for prominence in her heart.

"Stop it, Granger," Malfoy growled through clenched teeth. She blinked, startled out of her reverie.

"Stop what?" she wondered, honestly confused.

"Stop feeling sorry for me," he snapped. "I don't need your pity."

"I wasn't – " she began, but he cut her off with a snarl as he leapt from his chair. His face was inches from her own, and with the closer proximity came an intensifying of the feelings that rolled off him in waves, overwhelming her already-taxed emotional capacity.

"Don't _lie _to me, Granger," he warned menacingly. "I _know_." Vaguely, Hermione heard the outraged cries of classmates whose attention had been drawn by the clattering of Malfoy's chair to the floor, but she was curiously unconcerned with them. Her entire consciousness was taken up by the unfathomable realization that he _did_ know; she could feel his certainty, his utter awareness of her. She suddenly felt intolerably exposed, horribly violated. She jumped out of her own chair, sending it crashing to the floor beside Malfoy's, and stumbled backward, shaking her head as if to dislodge Malfoy's presence in it.

"You stay away from me, Malfoy," she demanding in a trembling voice. "Don't come near me."

"Gladly," he sneered, and he turned with his robes swirling around him and stalked out of the room. As a stunned, confused silence fell in his wake, his fury, his uncertainty, faded mercifully into an echo of what they had been, until she could feel only a whispered awareness of his presence, charged with hostile emotions.

"Ten points from Gryffindor," Snape said smoothly into the silence. Hermione nodded and righted both her chair and Malfoy's, too absorbed, confused, and exhausted to argue.


	3. The Iunctus Mens Effect

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. . . . If you're expecting a cute little elaboration on this idea, don't hold your breath. It's early. I got nothin.'

A/N: This chapter mostly consists of a more in-depth explanation of the side effect that has resulted in the link between Hermione and Malfoy. I apologize because I know it's boring in some places and that some of the information is, in fact, completely irrelevant to the storyline, but I promise there's a method to my madness. A few things that are mentioned will be crucial to the rest of the story, so I ask you to bear with me.

Because I feel so bad about this chapter, I will post the next one tomorrow morning, and I promise it will be considerably more interesting than this one is. With that said, on to the (crappy) chapter!

Chapter 3: The _Iunctus Mens _Effect

As Hermione moved quickly through the halls, she was oblivious to the annoyed and curious stares she received from the students she was pushing past. She had all but sprinted from the Potions dungeon when class had ended, intent upon avoiding Harry and Ron and getting to the library as quickly as possible. She was relatively certain that no one had yet figured out what had happened to Malfoy and her, and she was hoping to keep it that way, at least until she was more informed on the subject.

She stepped into the library, finding it wonderfully empty. Madame Pince was barely visible on the second-floor balcony, sorting books in what Hermione knew to be Muggle Studies section. Careful not to be seen so that no awkward questions might be asked, Hermione darted into the towering stacks of books toward the far left corner, where she had once discovered a small section of books on Magical Accidents, Coincidences, and Mysteries. Upon reaching the area, she quickly found a likely candidate: _Unintended Magic: A Guide to Magical Side Effects_. She sat a nearby table and opened the enormous volume to the index. In a chapter entitled "What No One Will Tell You about Love Potions and other Emotion Magic," an extensive article was dedicated to _Partis Sensus_ and its side effect, which the author referred to as the _Iunctus Mens _Effect.

Hermione flipped furiously through the pages to find the correct passage. A curl escaped from the messy knot she had tied her hair into, and she brushed it behind her ear impatiently. She made a small sound of triumph when she found what she was looking for. The first few paragraphs were devoted to the history of the _Partis Sensus _potion, but Hermione knew more from her textbook than the author had included in the text, so she skipped over until she found mention of the side effect that was wreaking such havoc on her life. Her eyes raced feverishly over the lines of text, her heart tightening with each word she read.

_The existence and use of the potion itself is widely known in the wizarding community, but less well known is a rare and mostly un-researched side effect, the Iunctus Mens Effect. The first documented case of this phenomenon was in 1945, when Hilda Green, a young Healer in Britain, hysterically reported to her advising Healer that she had been hexed by another young Healer with whom she had an ongoing rivalry. When the girl was calmed down, she explained that she believed she had been placed under a curse that forced her to experience the horrible events that had damaged the psyche of a patient she was treating. She was also convinced that whatever Dark magic had been performed on her was also warping the effects of the Partis Sensus potion she had been using to treat said patient. The empathic link of the potion usually lasts for an hour at most; the young Healer had been tormented by the pain of her patient for almost two days by the time she reported it to her advisor._

_At the time, no one associated the young Healer's experiences with the Partis Sensus potion, and it was not until 1953, when a similar incident occurred to a Miss Sandrine DuBois working as a Healer in a wizard hospital in France, that anyone saw the connection. Both women were interviewed extensively by famed Potions expert Cractacus Hopper. He found that their experiences were surprisingly similar, which reinforced his hypothesis that the cases were connected and mostly likely the result of the Partis Sensus potion gone wrong._

_While those interviews were being conducted, another accidental case of the phenomenon was reported, this time by two American students who had been creating the potion for a class assignment. During the same period, Hopper enlisted several pairs of volunteers to attempt to create the effect purposefully. Two of the teams were successful, and Hopper credited their careful notes on the subject as his most helpful source of information._

_Hopper's research led him to become the only person who might be considered an expert in the subject. He compiled the following list of the conditions that must be present in order for the Iunctus Mens Effect to occur:_

_1. The potion ingredients, which are measured so minutely and are so hard to duplicate that every batch of potion made is considered universally unique, must all be present in the correct amount with a margin of error of no more than .001 percent._

_2. The people who drink the potion must have a deep personal connection to one another. Usually, this connection is a mutual love. Only two exceptions to this rule have ever been reported: the first was that of one of Cractacus Hopper's teams of volunteers, who were actually his protégés and his official assistants in the research and were connected by a shared hatred for one another; the second, which took place in Prague in 1971, concerned a pair of fraternal twins who had been separated at birth and were unaware of their relationship until after the incident had occurred._

_3. The wizard(s) and/or witch(s) involved must both be exceptionally powerful magical beings. Everyone who has experienced the Iunctus Mens Effect, with the exception of the little girl in the 1953 case, who died at the age of 6, has led a life of exceptional glory and distinction. The data collected by Hopper's teams of volunteers led him to believe that this was not a coincidence, and that their power was partially responsible for causing the effect._

_Hopper also provided the most definitive description of the Iunctus Mens Effect. The phenomenon is triggered when someone under the effects of the Partis Sensus potion has physical contact with the person with whom he or she is connected. In all reported cases, the person who initiates the contact is then transported into the memory of the other. The clearest existing account of this experience is that of Elena Greunwald, a Potions master at Zwilling Stäbe Akademie in Germany, who, along with her husband, was one of Hopper's two successful teams of volunteers. The following is an excerpt from her research logs:_

"_When it first begins, the world spins around me and I am unable to breathe. Once I am actually inside the memory, I am both myself and Jakob, both an invader and a part of him. Only the small part of me that remains my own is an observer; mostly I am Jakob, feeling and thinking and doing everything he does, though I have no control over his actions. When the memory is over, I experience no swirling lights or difficulty breathing. I am simply back, as though I had never left at all. It is not what he does that seems most vivid when I am back in my mind and in my body; it is what he felt. The emotions remain with me far after the actual events seem far away and long ago."_

_The memories that are relived are generally of the most important and defining moments of each person's life. Often these events are characterized by trauma and pain, though joyful memories that have made someone who they are can also be subject to the influence of the Iunctus Mens Effect. After the initial incident, both linked people can experience the memories of the other. These incidents are always triggered by touch and usually occur during moments of intense emotional stress._

_People who are linked by the Iunctus Mens Effect experience other symptoms besides the extraordinary phenomenon of sharing memories. The temporary empathic link that is created intentionally by the Partis Sensus potion is made permanent. Its effects are also intensified, and are reported to be indescribably powerful when physical contact is made._

_While most people who experience this phenomenon do not initially welcome or even accept their new link, it has the almost invariable effect of creating a bond between the two people that lasts their entire lives. Of the eleven reported cases of the Iunctus Mens Effect, six of the seven male-female pairs were eventually married, if they were not already. The remaining four pairs maintained unusually deep and life-long friendships. _

_The only pair that proved to be an exception to this rule were the aforementioned protégés of Cractacus Hopper. Delilah James and Edward Flannigan, both twenty-four when their link was established in 1955, had been rivals during their education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Flannigan reported in a 1974 interview that their shared experiences had not been enough to overcome their shared hatred, so Miss James, who would eventually create some of the most useful potions and charms used in modern Healing, began to investigate ways to sever the connection between them._

_Flannigan then made the thus far-unsubstantiated claim that while Miss James failed in her attempt to completely undo the effects of the Iunctus Mens Effect, she had found a method that allowed her to block Flannigan's awareness of her feelings. He claimed, with no small amount of bitterness, that she had not shared her methods with him. He assumed that she had created a potion to counteract the effects, but this is mere conjecture. Unfortunately for researchers and the wizarding community at large, Miss James married in 1959, and thereafter stopped her research into potion making and cut off all contact with the academic community. It is generally assumed that her personal journals, which have been lost since her death in 1991, contain not only notes on what could be valuable Healing magic but also her secret method for blocking the Iunctus Mens Effect. It is quite possible that they will remain lost forever, along with this invaluable information._

The article ended there. Hermione sat back in her chair, feeling as though a very large train had rushed by her at a very fast speed. To have found the answer and then to have lost it again . . . On top of everything else that had happened to her today, she thought she would be perfectly justified if she had herself and nice, long, soul-cleansing cry right there in the library. Instead, she ripped the page from the book with a blatant and somehow satisfying disregard for school property. She returned the book to the shelf and glanced around furtively, unsure if she was worried that someone would see her and somehow figure out what she had been doing, or if she was feeling guilty for tearing out the page.

She skipped dinner, feeling neither hungry nor up to facing Malfoy again. The Gryffindor common room was mercifully empty, but Hermione did not linger there. She went to her dormitory, spent a fruitless half-hour re-reading the same paragraph in her Transfiguration book without comprehending a word of it, and then went to bed. She lay awake for hours, long after Lavender and Parvati and come up to bed and fallen into easy sleep. It was only in the young hours of the morning that she finally slept, and even then her dreams were strange and uneasy, filled with visions of frightened children and angry eyes as grey as the sea before a storm.


	4. Hermione's Memory

Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe does not belong to me. Good thing, too. I don't have room for the things I already have.

May my reviewers be showered with good fortune and pink jelly beans, two of the greatest things on the face of the earth: Smenzer, SeekerOfDeath, GMUXMenSoaps, secretspells311, The Black Pearl is Freedom, Danish Pastry 28, and paprika90.

Smenzer: Thank you for the long review. You must stop being so insightful! You'll make me give the story away.

The Black Pearl is Freedom: Can I assume that your penname refers to that oh-so-wonderful movie, _Pirates of the Caribbean_? If so, let me just say that I adore that movie (and Orlando Bloom) with all my heart and soul.

A/N: I'm glad you didn't find the chapter too boring. I still don't like it much, but it turned out better than I thought. Anyway, it was a necessary detour from the storyline.

Because I felt so bad about Chapter 3 (and still do) here is the chapter, as promised. Enjoy it, because the next one won't be as quick in coming. It still shouldn't be much more than three or four days, but you never know. Two things are slowing Chapter 5 up. One, it isn't written yet (oops!). Second, I have been attacked by another plot bunny (slightly less cliché than this one, I think) and it won't leave me alone. I've begun to work out the basic plotline and the first chapter just flowed out of my fingertips this afternoon is less than half an hour. _Linked _will remain my priority, of course, but I just thought I should let you know. I will probably begin posting it in late July, so if Book 6 totally blows my story out of the water, I won't be stuck with it. Anyway, on to the chapter!

Chapter 4: Hermione's Memory

The next morning, Malfoy was sitting in library in a quiet corner, staring at a bookshelf but not seeing it at all. When Pansy's vapid chatter and the dull but malignant grumblings of Crabbe, Goyle, and the other Slytherin's began to wear too thinly on his nerves, he came to the library, where at least it was quiet and he could be only with his thoughts. It was early, far early than most Hogwarts students rose on Saturday mornings, but Malfoy had always been fond of morning, when the light was pale and the halls were quiet. The earlier he was up, the less likely it was that he would be disturbed by the members of other houses, whom he despised on principle, or by the Slytherins, who almost worse.

Unfortunately, he did not have long to enjoy his solitude. Malfoy knew the instant that Hermione walked into the library, though he sat in a distant corner and his view of the door was blocked a dozen times over. Her presence seemed to crash through the rows of bookcases and cascade over him like flood water, her trepidation matched by her determination. She had come looking for him, and she was nervous about it.

Knowing the innermost insecurities of one of his mortal enemies ought to have given him satisfaction, at the very least, but it didn't. It rather pissed him off, actually. She was everywhere. Her fears and feelings hovered at the far reaching corners of his mind even when she was no where near him, and when he had awoken that morning, he suspected that her dreams lingered at the edge of his memory. Worst of all was the utter goodness of her. It clung to every thought she had, and he was finding it both nauseating and exasperating. He had always suspected the self-righteousness of the Gryffindors to be a front, a hoax, a little role they played to make themselves feel superior. It seemed, however, that this Gryffindor was as pure and upright as she appeared to be, which only served to piss him off further.

She found his secluded table as though she had neon arrows pointing the way. She stopped across from him, hovering near the bookcase as though she might change her mind and flee at the last moment. He leaned back in his chair and allowed a lazy smirk to settle on his lips, although he knew she could feel his tension and wariness.

"You just can't stay away from me, can you?" he drawled. He felt her flash of irritation and felt a sort of comforting satisfaction at the normalcy of annoying one of the Golden Trio.

"I thought you might want to know that I've been researching the potion," she said in a rushed voice.

"Oh, way to keep them guessing, Granger," he said sarcastically. He had known, even without the aid of their new link, that the first thing Hermione Granger did in a crisis was consult a book. She glared at him, and he felt her temper rise as tangibly as he might have felt a sudden hike in the temperature of the room.

"Look, Malfoy, I'm only trying to help you, and you're being an ass about it." He knew she was telling the truth, about both things, but he was much more comfortable exchanging insults with Granger than accepting her help. He sneered up at her.

"Your help isn't wanted here," he told her coldly. She raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, and he barely resisted the urge to squirm under her penetrating gaze.

"Fine," she said in an annoying haughty and unmoved voice, as though his refusal of her assistance didn't bother her at all. "I was just going to tell you that I think there's a way for us to block each other's knowledge of our feelings, but if you're not interested . . ." She turned and began to walk away.

"Now, just wait a minute, Granger," Malfoy exclaimed in exasperation as he got up to follow her. Without thinking, he grabbed her arm above the elbow to halt her progress, and his breath was stolen from his throat as he was jerked into another time and place.

He blinked and suddenly found himself in a long, grey-walled hallway where the air was thick with an unpleasant smell that he did not recognize himself but which he realized was familiar to Hermione, whose mind he seemed to be inhabiting. She did not like the stale, chemical scent; in fact, it filled her heart, which was racing in her chest, with dread and sorrow.

Malfoy found himself walking down the hall, his footsteps ringing eerily on the dingy white tiles of the floor. He was suddenly aware that his hand -- or really, Hermione's -- was gripped tightly in the much-larger hand of the man walking beside him. He looked up at the man's haggard face, his outdated eyeglasses, his disheveled brown hair, and felt a surge of affection and sadness. Malfoy did not recognize the man, but he knew who he must be -- Hermione's father. Judging from the height difference and the proportional size of the hallway, Malfoy guessed that this memory took place when Hermione was no more than four or five years old.

Hermione's father stopped at a numbered doorway, and Malfoy felt Hermione's heart leap with fear and wrenching sadness. Hermione's father opened the door and Malfoy walked in, reluctance, both his and Hermione's, causing his small feet to drag.

The room was dimly lit by watery light filtered through off-white blinds at the window. The same dingy tiles and grayish walls that lined the hallway were present here, but this room was somehow more desolate, as though hope had long ago been banished from it. His eyes fell with trepidation upon the figure of a child in a tall bed with bars on either side, attached to beeping, flashing boxes by tubing and wires. The little boy appeared to be a year or so younger than Hermione, and his skin was drawn and translucent, stretched thinly over fragile bones. Beside his bed sat a woman with frazzled brown hair and a stricken face. Her eyes were filled with so much grief that they were painful to look at.

Hermione's father guided Malfoy to the side of the bed, and then let him go in order to go to the side of the woman, who Malfoy could only assume to be Hermione's mother. She had obviously been crying, and tears glistened in her eyes, the same shade of honey-brown as Hermione's, as she looked at Malfoy and the young boy. As he looked down at the emaciated child, Hermione's young heart contracted with affection, grief, and confusion, and Malfoy suddenly understood the memory he was experiencing.

Malfoy had been transported into Hermione's memory of the death of her younger brother. He had not even been aware that Granger had ever had a sibling, let alone lost one. It seemed so strange, so out of place in what he'd always assumed to be a past as charmed and perfect as her present.

"Hermione, darling," Hermione's mother said in a choked voice. "You know that Chris has been sick for a long time." Malfoy nodded, for Hermione had known this, and realized that his hand, plump and tiny, was stroking the sweat-slicked hair from the little boy's forehead. "We don't want him to hurt anymore, do we?"

"No," Malfoy heard himself say, his voice that of a timid little girl. Tears were flowing freely down Hermione's mother's face now, and she swallowed hard before she continued.

"Well, soon he won't hurt, baby. Soon he'll go somewhere where he'll be happy, and healthy. He'll be able to talk and laugh and play, like he used to. He'll be with Grandmama and Uncle David, and Scruffy, and he won't ever suffer again . . ." Hermione's mother dissolved into sobs and buried her face in her husband's chest. Hermione's father held his wife and stroked her hair as a single tear escaped his own eye. Hermione was saddened and frightened and confused by her parent's grief, and Malfoy felt a foreign jab of pity in his heart.

"But if Chris will be happy there, why are you sad?" he wondered aloud.

"We're sad because we can't go with him, Hermione," her father explained in a pained voice, and her mother's sobs increased in volume.

"But I want Chris to stay with us," Malfoy heard Hermione protest, and tears of unhappiness and denial stung his eyes. Before her father could respond, the beeping from the boxes changed, becoming loud and constant, and Hermione's mother howled with grief while her father screamed for something called a 'doctor.' People began to rush in from the hallway, shoving Malfoy to the back of the room. A plump woman who smelled, to Hermione, like her long-absent Grandmama who would so soon be with Chris, held her away from her hysterical parents while her childish grief splintered her heart.

Malfoy blinked again and was back in the library at Hogwarts, his heart still racing and his hand, his own hand, latched onto Hermione Granger's arm like a port in a storm. He yanked his fingers away in disgust, both with the contact with a Muggle-born and with the feelings of sympathy and sadness that she was inspiring in him. A single tear was spilling down her pale cheek, and her eyes were eerily like her mother's, the grief in them as raw as it might have been if her brother had died twelve days ago, rather than twelve years. Her pain saturated the air around them, making Malfoy's chest tight with empathy that he neither wanted nor accepted. He briefly considered various snide, cruel, and sarcastic remarks to break the silence, but something in the way her eyes overflowed with grief and vulnerability stayed his tongue. On the other hand, the very idea of offering words of comfort or sympathy to Hermione Granger turned his stomach. He finally settled on something that was neither kind nor cruel.

"I never knew you had a brother, Granger," he said quietly. She hiccupped and wiped the tears from her eyes, showing a streak of strength and self-control that Malfoy found himself admiring.

"I was very young when he died. I barely remember him," she said carefully, avoiding his gaze. He could feel her fear that he would exploit his newfound information, her sense of being exposed and weak, her hatred of being at the mercy of another. He could also feel, but would not acknowledge, her feeling of kinship with him, which he supposed stemmed from her realization of how difficult it was to allow someone else to see the most horrible and secret memories of his past. Another feeling came to him suddenly, and he told her.

"You miss him, though," Malfoy reported. Another wave of loss crashed over him and stole his breath. "God, Granger, do you miss him. How do you live like this?"

"I don't think of him very often. It's only when it hits me when I'm not expecting it that it hurts this much." She closed her eyes, and the raw edge of her grief subsided, allowing Malfoy to take a grateful breath. Hermione opened her eyes suddenly, and she began to back away. "I don't want to talk about this anymore. We'll meet another time, okay?" Her eyes were pleading, and Malfoy nodded his consent, feeling drained himself. She turned and disappeared into the shelves, leaving in her wake the lingering poignancy of her sadness and the faint undertone that Malfoy was coming to think of simply as her presence.

A/N: I'm not sure if I did the right thing in wreaking havoc on Hermione's background here. I despise stories that give Hermione a past or a family that I don't think Hermione-as-written-by-J.K. Rowling could possibly have. I think its presumptuous, and rather off-putting. However, I needed some kind of traumatic event for her when she was young, and since the thing that effects us most when we are young is our family, I thought it was the best way to go. If you, like me, don't like it when Hermione's past is bent for the purpose of the story, don't worry too much. Her brother won't really be brought up again, and the memories to come will (hopefully!) remain within the boundaries of what I think Hermione's past could really be.


	5. AUTHOR'S NOTE

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

**Due to a technical error (that error being that I am completely technologically retarded), this chapter was originally posted as Chapter 4 all over again. Many of my lovely reviewers reviewed to tell me that I'd screwed up (in the nicest way possible, of course), and I wanted to give them a chance to review for the _real_ Chapter 5, because their input is so helpful to me. Therefore, Chapter 5 is posted in the Chapter 6 slot. I apologize for being completely inept. In my defense, I am an English major, not a computer genius. **


	6. The Night of the Fallen Textbook

Disclaimer: I have been sitting here pondering what it would be like to own the Harry Potter universe (which I don't, by the way). I suppose it would mean that I could sleep in a lot and spend a considerable amount of my time writing and talking about Harry Potter, all while making deplorable sums of money. Heck, I do that stuff for free!

A/N: I have very little to say this time. I know, I know, you're all terribly disappointed that I'm not going to ramble on for four paragraphs before I get to the actual story, but you'll all just have to be strong! I hope you enjoy reading the chapter, because I enjoyed writing it. I felt that Chapter 4 was semi-intense, and we all needed a little break. I also had a specific image in my head that was making my smile, and this felt like a good place to fit it in. Without further ado, on to the chapter!

Chapter 5: The Night of the Fallen Textbook

"You and Malfoy are _what_?" Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose, where a hell of a migraine was beginning to form. It was late, and the Gryffindor common room was all but empty, so Hermione was curled up in one of the prized armchairs by the fire. Ron and Harry sat across from her. Ron seemed utterly perplexed by Hermione's concise explanation of the previous day's events, and his incomprehension had resulted in several interruptions and this final disbelieving query, which was beginning to grate on her already frayed nerves. Harry, by contrast, had remained silent throughout the story, and his knitted brows and slight frown bespoke perfect comprehension and a profound concern.

"Ron, darling, this has been a very long day for me," she said from behind closed eyelids. "Please don't make me repeat myself. I love you dearly, and do not want to kill you." Ron scowled at her, and Harry's lips twitched with a small smile, though his bottle-green eyes remained dark with worry.

"Why didn't you tell us about this right away?" Harry asked. His voice held the faintest trace of reproach, and Hermione felt a twinge of guilt.

"For a while, I didn't understand what was happening. Once I did, I thought I should try to talk to Malfoy first. He's in this mess, too, you know." At this, the boys shared a malevolent glance.

"I'm still not sure he didn't do this on purpose," Ron grumbled sullenly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"He most certainly did not, Ron," she exclaimed with exasperation. "He's no happier about this than I am."

"Is there any way to fix this?" Harry wanted to know. "An antidote, a charm, some kind of spell?"

"It's a very rare phenomenon, Harry. Only eleven cases have ever been reported, so there hasn't been much research into the subject, and no cure has ever been found." She hesitated slightly, unsure if she should tell them about Delilah James and her missing journals. She felt another twinge of guilt as she remembered Harry's reproachful gaze as he'd asked her why she'd kept things from them. "I did find a reference to a woman who managed to . . ." She groped for the right word, unsure of what it was herself. "_ . . . block_ the effects somehow."

"What do you mean, 'block the effects?'" Ron wanted to know.

"It was a very vague reference, and from a secondary source, as well. I think she found a way to hide her feelings from the man she was connected to." Both boys brightened at this prospect.

"How did she do it?" Harry asked.

"I don't know!" Hermione replied, almost wailing in frustration. "She never revealed her method, and when she was married her personal journals were lost." The three remained silent for a while, contemplating Hermione's predicament.

"What did Malfoy do when you told him about the journals?" Harry asked suddenly into the silence. That morning's events in the library flashed through Hermione's mind, and she looked into the fire to avoid their gazes, fearful that they would see in her eyes the grief that Malfoy had so inopportunely brought to the surface.

"I never really got a chance to tell him. I went to find him, and I could tell he was still angry, and confused. I was almost beginning to feel sorry for him. Then he opened his mouth and couldn't resist acting like a prat, as usual." Her eyebrows furrowed, and she stared into the fire thoughtfully. "I'm starting to wonder if that's his defense mechanism when he's feeling insecure." She looked up, and Ron and Harry were staring at her as though she'd grown another head, stripped down to her knickers, and begun dancing around the fireplace.

"What?" she asked.

"I know you were not just considering the idea that Malfoy acts like a spoiled, arrogant git because he's _insecure_," Ron exclaimed disbelievingly. He leaned forward in his chair and took one of Hermione's hands in his, looking at her as one might look at a very small, rather stupid child. "Listen very closely, Hermione. Malfoy acts like a prat because Malfoy _is_ a prat. Now is no time to go developing a soft spot for poor, misunderstood, filthy rich, Muggle-hating future Death Eaters." Hermione shook her head to dispel whatever mutinous thoughts had been brewing there.

"Absolutely not. Of course Malfoy's a prat. I _know_ he's a prat. I was just saying that -- " She jumped suddenly in her chair and put one hand to her forehead, and Harry looked at her in mild alarm.

"You okay, Hermione?" he asked.

"I'm fine, I just . . ." She rubbed her forehead gingerly. " I thought I felt something hit me." She looked up into the empty air above her head as though expecting to see the offending 'something' hovering above her, waiting to have another go. Harry and Ron exchanged knowing looks.

"You've had a long couple of days, Hermione," Harry said, getting up from his chair. "Why don't you go to bed? Tomorrow's a weekend, so you can sleep in and in the morning we'll figure something out, okay?" Hermione looked at him out of the corner of her eye, still rubbing her throbbing head. She was not known as the cleverest witch in her year for nothing, and she knew when she was being patronized, but it struck her suddenly how very tired she was, having had almost no sleep the night before. Also, she was really in no mood to relive the memory Malfoy had experienced that morning, and she knew that if she told them what had happened, they would want to know the details. She nodded at Harry's suggestion and rose from her chair as well.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said wearily as she mounted the stairs to the seventh-year girls' dormitory, thinking morosely about the headache she was going to have in the morning. Because her back was to them, Hermione did not see Ron and Harry watching her until she was out of sight, identical frowns of worry on their faces.

"Damn it!" Malfoy swore as a thick textbook fell from the top shelf of his bookcase and bounced off his forehead. He pressed one hand against the tender spot and kicked the offending object viciously before returning it to its place beside the book he had _actually_ been reaching for. He pulled the correct volume from its orderly place and returned to his desk, which was buried beneath a mountain of notes and books he'd taken from the library.

It was late, and Malfoy was both tired and unusually irritable, but he was not going to allow Granger to outdo him in this, too. He had spent all afternoon and most of the evening searching for whatever it was that she had been intending to tell him before the incident in the library. If she knew something valuable, than he was damned well going to know it too, and he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of telling him.

Every book he'd found that mentioned the _Partis Sensus_ potion was depressingly vague about the side effect referred to in some texts as the _Iunctus Mens_ Effect. Malfoy grew more annoyed with each reference to the phenomenon, which seemed to grow progressively more cryptic and evasive each time he came across one. Even the name began to grate on his nerves. Connected minds, indeed! Academics could be so melodramatic.

The closest he'd come was a book on magical side effects, which seemed to lean somewhat toward paranoia and conspiracy theories, in Malfoy's personal opinion. The potion and its side effect were both in the index, but the correct page was missing, and seemed to have been torn out fairly recently. Malfoy knew instantly who had done it, and briefly considered stalking up to the Gryffindor common room and murdering the insufferable know-it-all. The thought cheered him momentarily, as he realized that this would effectively break their bond, but the plan's impracticality and the fact that it would most likely be an unpleasant experience for _him_ quickly caused him to reject the idea.

He was now resorting to one of a small collection of books that his father insisted Draco take to school with him. They were academic writings, all very rare first-editions that were more useful as status symbols than as research materials, but Malfoy was growing desperate. Perhaps _Twentieth Century Potions Masters: Their Work and Theories_ would shed some much-needed light on his predicament.

He was almost absent-mindedly browsing the table of contents, not really believing he'd find anything, when he did a double-take and blinked sleepy eyes at one specific entry. Chapter 3 of the book was entitled "Cractacus Hopper and the _Iunctus Mens_ Effect." He flipped quickly to page and began to skim the words written there. The grin that crossed his face was so unlike his usual smirk that people who didn't know him well might not have recognized him.

If he was not mistaken, he had just outdone Hermione Granger.


	7. Headaches and Revelations

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all his lovely companions are the property of J.K. Rowling. I am not J.K. Rowling. Hence, Harry Potter and all his lovely companions do not belong to me. (All that rambling was really just an excuse to use the word 'hence,' which I think is just a fun word to say.)

A/N: Has anyone ever seen or read _The Importance of Being Earnest _by Oscar Wilde? Do you know the part at the end where, through a comically implausible coincidence, the main character, Jack, whose eternal happiness is in jeopardy because his name is not Ernest, finds out that he was adopted and that his real name is, in fact, Ernest? I fear that I have unintentionally created a similar coincidence in this chapter; it is too neat, too fortuitous, and too perfectly symmetrical. You'll see what I mean when you read it. I might decide that it's just too easy, and throw a wrench into the works later on. Tell me what you think.

On to the chapter!

Chapter 6: Headaches and Revelations

Malfoy awoke the next morning at dawn, as was his custom, with painful waves emanating out from the slightly bruised knot in the center of his forehead. He winced as he sat up, and groaned loudly when he pulled back the green velvet curtain around his four-poster and light washed over him. He rubbed his eyes and levered himself out of bed, wondering if it was worth it to drag himself down to the infirmary for a dose of Hollingworth's Headache Relief Draught or if living with his throbbing head would be preferable to hearing Madam Pomfrey's "the evils of drink" lecture one more time.

His decision was made for him when a small tawny owl flew in through the open window and landed on the trunk at the foot of his bed. It stared at him inquisitively and held out its leg, to which was attached a small band bearing the Hogwarts crest and a letter. Malfoy took the letter, perplexed by who in the Hogwarts castle would feel the need to owl him. He scowled at the letter as soon as he recognized the painfully neat handwriting marching in careful lines across its surface.

_Malfoy:_

_Come down to breakfast. I need to talk to you._

_H.G._

_Who did she think she was, ordering him around? He was a Malfoy, a pure-blood, a Slytherin, captain of his Quidditch team, and Head Boy to boot. She had no business telling him what to do. He fumed with silent and indignant fury, and briefly considered ignoring the summons and allowing her to sit and wait for him all morning. He spent a pleasant moment imagining the exact shade of purple Granger would turn when she realized that he wasn't coming, and then went to get dressed. He didn't want his late-night efforts to have been in vain, and the thought of the look on one intolerably good-hearted Gryffindor's face when she realized she'd been bested was making his pounding head feel slightly better._

Fifteen minutes later, Malfoy was walking briskly into the Great Hall, wincing as early morning sunlight streamed down from the enchanted ceiling and into his eyes. He squinted at the practically deserted room, quickly taking note of the fact that, with the exception of the Arithmancy professor, who looked annoyingly wide-awake, and a sixth-year Ravenclaw with his nose buried in a book, he and Granger were alone. Speaking of Granger, she didn't seem to be enjoying the light very much either. She was shielding her eyes with one hand, and waves of bad temper and impatience were rolling off of her.

She looked up at him as he entered the room, and waited with an unmoved expression and a relieved heart as he sauntered over to her. As he neared, he saw her glance at his forehead, and felt understanding and irritation flash through her simultaneously.

"So it's _your_ fault, then," she snapped at him. He blinked, running over his recent actions in his mind to try to find something that he'd done and that she would know about that would warrant the intense dislike she was feeling for him at that moment.

"What's my fault?" he wanted to know, taking a step back when she whipped out her wand.

"My bloody headache," she explained, standing up and inspecting the bump on his forehead. He batted her hand away when she made a move to touch the tender spot. She scowled at him. "No wonder nothing I did made it any better. I spent half an hour trying to heal a headache that _you_ woke up with." She muttered a few words and pointed her wand at the bruised area, and Malfoy immediately felt the pain recede. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and sat back down, and Malfoy seated himself beside her.

"Thank goodness. I was beginning to wonder if all this empathy business was wreaking havoc with my brain and I was either going mad or getting ready to explode." Malfoy didn't say anything (though he later thought of a few choice words having to do with the questionable tense of the word "going" and his absolute support for the latter option) because it suddenly struck him that he was sitting at the Gryffindor table with Hermione Granger of his own free will. He didn't know whether to be mortified or revolted. Perhaps both.

"You needn't be so uptight, Malfoy," Hermione commented without looking at him as she began to scoop some eggs onto her plate. "None of your nasty Slytherin friends are here, and I certainly won't tell anyone that you deigned to sit with a lowly Muggleborn, and at the Gryffindor table, no less. Your dubious reputation is intact." He glared at her, because her interpretation of his feelings was so accurate and because it made him feel slightly more grounded in reality.

"Don't do that," he growled as he reached for a piece of toast.

"Then don't be so obvious," she replied smartly. She was feeling smug, which only made Malfoy feel more sullen.

"Did you have a reason for summoning me down here like a common house elf, or was it purely for the pleasure of your company?" Her twinge of indignation at the house-elf comment (which had been entirely intentional) did not show on her face, much to Malfoy's disappointment, and she began to speak with the slightly haughty, business-like competence that she was so famous for, and which grated on Malfoy's nerves no less now than it had when they were first-years.

"I researched the potion in the library, and discovered that it has a very rare side-effect. Not much research has been done on the subject, so there was very little information," she explained in a clipped tone.

"I know," Malfoy said almost mournfully, remember his long hours of fruitless searching the night before. She shot him an odd look and he could feel that she was puzzled by the response, which gave him a small amount of pleasure.

"It's called the _Iunctus Mens_ Effect," she continued, searching through her bag for a neatly folded piece of parchment with a ragged edge; the missing page, he knew. "A man named Cractacus Hopper studied it back in the 50's."

"I _know_," Malfoy repeated, this time with a small smirk. Her puzzlement became suspicion with this latest interruption. She narrowed her eyes as she studied him, and he squirmed uncomfortably under her honey-brown scrutiny.

"You know something," she said accusingly. He shrugged as he carefully buttered his toast.

"Perhaps," he replied evasively, enjoying his game immensely.

"Quit feeling so damned pleased with yourself, Malfoy!" she snapped loudly, drawing the attention of the perky professor and the studious Ravenclaw, both of whom only now seemed to notice the peculiar pair seated at the deserted Gryffindor table. Hermione looked at them and lowered her voice to a furious hiss. "Tell me what you found."

"Well, I was reading through Hopper's published works and personal notes --"

"You were _what?_" Hermione interrupted him with wide eyes and a jolt of shock that almost knocked him from his seat. He recovered quickly and took a small bite of his toast, brushing a non-existent crumb from his pristine black robe.

"Yes, you see, my father has managed to acquire some valuable texts, and Hopper's work, along with some personal notes bought at auction, happen to be among the ones I brought to school with me." Bitter envy was radiating off Hermione, and Malfoy was so enjoying it that he briefly considered their link a blessing.

"Even the Hogwarts library hasn't been able to acquire copies of Hopper's work. It went out of print ages ago. I asked Madam Pince."

"My father has considerably more influence than Madam Pince, Granger," Malfoy reminded her smugly. She was furious, and he noticed how it made her eyes glitter.

"More money, you mean," she spat, pushing her eggs away as though she'd lost her appetite. Malfoy was in just a good enough mood to let her loathing of his father slide.

"Anyway, back to my story. I found reference to an assistant of his who discovered a way to counteract this blasted link, or whatever it is. I think the answer is in her journals." Hermione gave him a smirk that he knew rivaled his own.

"If you had bothered to pay any real attention to the priceless piece of history that you undoubtedly tossed to the floor when you were done with it," she said scathingly, "you would know that Delilah James' journals were lost when she married." Malfoy gloated inwardly, knowing that she could feel his smug sense of triumph and equally aware that it was driving her crazy. He pulled his own neatly folded piece of parchment out of one of the pockets of his robes and pushed the page over to Granger, pointing to an specific passage. The parchment was aged and yellowed, and what was unquestionably Hopper's own handwriting was scrawled across the surface. It appeared to be an entry into a research log, or perhaps a journal.

_Delilah has stopped responding to my owls. She never revealed her method to me or to Edward, and now I fear it will be lost forever. Delilah was never sentimental, but she would not deny me such valuable information that could so greatly affect my life's work. This is not her doing. I blame her husband, so much colder and more distant than she could ever be, and the rest of the Malfoys, who have not only deprived me of a valuable assistant, but have deprived the world of a great mind._

"She married a Malfoy," Hermione said numbly.

"My great-uncle Blake, as a matter of fact," Malfoy replied. "Her journals are in the family archives. I've owled Mother. They should arrive by next morning's post."

Hermione stared at him speechlessly for a moment. Then he felt a strange twinge of painful pressure between his eyes and Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose with a groan.

"I think my headache's coming back," she moaned from behind her hands. Malfoy only smirked, and took another delicate bite of toast.

A/N: One of my favorite things about J.K. Rowling is that she puts so much thought and planning into the names she gives her characters. I myself have spent hours online looking up names and meanings for characters in stories I write. Even if no one else gets it, I like to know that the names of my characters say something about them. For those of you who are interested, Blake means "pale blond one" or, alternatively, "dark." Is that a perfect name for a Malfoy, or what?

Oh, don't forget to tell me if you think the little "married to a Malfoy" thing is too much of a coincidence or if it's okay the way it is. I have some ideas that could make it less neat and tidy, but I'm not sure if I want to use them. I really want feedback on this.


	8. A Tragic and Terrible Beauty

Disclaimer: I can't think of anything to say. It's 2 in the morning, I just saw _War of the Worlds_, and there's a thunderstorm outside that sounds like the big tripod machines that kill everybody. I'm scared. My muses are scared, and are hiding under the bed. I think I might join them if the lightning doesn't stop flashing right outside my window.

A/N: This chapter got very intense very fast, and I had no idea it was going to happen. It had a mind of its own, I swear. I finished writing it and felt completely emotionally drained. I really debated about keeping it in, because even when I've let this story get more intense during the memory parts, I don't think it's gotten quite this dark. Also, I'm afraid that this memory makes Draco seem a lot more messed up than I originally intended. I'm wondering if we're going to have to do some serious psychological healing to get this boy to fall in love with Hermione, and that really wasn't in my game plan. Then I decided to post it anyway. I put a lot of emotional energy into this, and it seemed like a waste of all that if I didn't put it in. Also, this chapter came so easily and was so vivid in my mind, I'm taking it as a sign. Brace yourselves, and on to the chapter!

Chapter 7: A Tragic and Terrible Beauty

Hermione sat in silent contemplation for a long while, watching Malfoy finish his toast with an aristocratic elegance that rather annoyed her. She was still having trouble accepting the extraordinary piece of news that Malfoy had so nonchalantly revealed. She wasn't used to other people knowing more than she did, and she wasn't taking it as well as she might have hoped.

"Don't feel so dejected," Malfoy said suddenly, dabbing the corner of his mouth delicately with a napkin. His trademark smirk was firmly in place. "You are a sore loser, aren't you?" He was baiting her, and she knew it, just as she knew that he was getting immense enjoyment from provoking her and watching her reaction, but that didn't stop her from swelling with fury.

"I most certainly am _not_!" she exclaimed indignantly. "And I wasn't aware that we were competing, Malfoy." He laughed softly, but it was a cold laugh, and there was no humor in it. He leaned toward her, and his voice was deceptively soft. Only his eyes, which she had once thought to be icy and unreadable, belied the sneering arrogance and vindictive desire to hurt her which pulsed off of him and clouded her senses.

"And they say you're a clever witch. We're _always_ competing, Granger." He leaned back, eyes so sharp and jagged-edged that they stung her. "And yet, no matter the outcome, I will _always_ be a Malfoy, and you will always be a second-class Muggle-born excuse for a witch." His smirk turned somewhat sardonic. "How quaintly ironic that that just yesterday _you_ were feeling sorry for _me_."

It had been a long time since she had allowed Malfoy's taunts and insults to cause her any real pain. She supposed the last two days had brought down her guard, because she suddenly found her eyes stinging with tears, long-buried self-doubt tearing at her heart. If she had not been swallowed up by painful feelings she thought she had left behind in her insecure childhood, she might have noticed the tremor of surprise, the foreign flash of guilt, that jolted through Malfoy, making his quicksilver eyes widen ever so slightly.

The worst thing Hermione could imagine in that moment was allowing Malfoy to see her cry. She stood quickly and began to walk away, but in her haste, she stumbled. Instinct made her snatch at the first thing she could reach to break her fall; in this case, Malfoy's shoulder. The world spun and whirled, and as she struggled for breath, she wished desperately that she'd just let herself hit the ground. She shut her eyes, telling herself over and over that, when she opened them, she would be in her own time, sprawled on the floor of the Great Hall and impossibly grateful to be exactly where she was.

When she opened her eyes, she felt despair, but not surprise, to find herself in a dark clearing, the air thick with wood smoke and the excited, whispering voices of several dozen restless people. The night sky above them was clouded and ominous, and the eyes of the black-robed and shifting crowd seemed to flash in the light of a fire she couldn't quite see. Apprehension, anticipation, and uneasiness tightened like snakes around her rapidly beating heart. Hermione did not want to know where she was, did not want to see this memory. Whatever Draco Malfoy had done in the woods in the middle of the night with a crowd of Death Eaters, she knew she could go the rest of her life without knowing what it was.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and started ever so slightly as she turned to look up at the owner of the offending hand. Lucius Malfoy looked down at his son with a proud smile that made Hermione's skin crawl and Draco's heart swell with pride.

"How much longer, Father?" Hermione asked in Draco's lazy drawl, still high-pitched and slightly whiny, as it had been when she first met him.

"Not long, Draco. You must be patient," Lucius said indulgently. Draco pouted, obviously unused to his desires not being met immediately. If Hermione had been in control of her eyes, she would have rolled them. She wondered if it was possible to be annoyed by oneself.

Hermione wandered over to a small pond and stared down at her reflection in the still water. Her face was Draco's face as she remembered it from their childhood, pale and pointed, with a perpetually unimpressed expression. She guessed his age in this memory to be no more than nine or ten. The night was balmy, though an uneasy breeze whistled through the trees, and she suspected that it was the summer before their first year at Hogwarts. She furrowed her brows, and knew Draco was trying to decide if his fear showed on his face. She realized with a pained heart that if he was frightened of whatever was to come, he absolutely terrified that his father would notice his fear and punish him for it.

The whispering, restless crowd suddenly began to buzz with excitement, and Hermione turned. They had formed a circle around something, and at the outer edge of the ring, Lucius's face glowed eerily in the darkness beneath his black hood. He held out a hand to his son, and Hermione went obediently, the reluctance in her heart completely unapparent in her calm strides. Lucius parted the crowd easily; Hermione might have imagined it, but she thought the people might be making way for him with something almost equivalent to reverence, or perhaps abject terror.

Hermione stopped as the last black-robed figure moved to the side, allowing her to see the reason for the Death Eaters' presence in the forest. A young woman was lying, magically bound, near the edge of a roaring bonfire. Her hair was very long, and a reddish blonde in the flickering firelight. Despite her battered appearance and her helpless position, her eyes were defiant and fierce, a stunning shade of sapphire blue. The Death Eaters were hissing at her, muttering furious obscenities and chilling threats. Hermione felt a tremble of foreboding as she looked down at the woman, who could not have been much more than a child herself. She almost jumped out of her skin when she felt Lucius's breath on her ear, his voice dark and hate-filled as he whispered to her.

"A filthy Mudblood bitch," Lucius hissed his son's young ear. Draco did not flinch at the obscenities, but Hermione was appalled and disgusted, and now more terrified than ever for the helpless girl on the ground before her. "They are spreading, Draco, like a deadly plague. They are a disease that slowly poisons our world. They taint it and twist it. Worse still, they use their crude cunning to poison our minds, and now we have begun to give to them freely all that our ancestors have spent centuries building for our use." Lucius's voice had reached an almost feverish pitch, and it dripped with a venomous hatred that chilled even the heart of his adoring son. "They would steal from you your rightful place as the future of the wizarding world. Now you will see what the servants of the Dark Lord are doing for you, Draco, you and the rest of our children. We will cleanse this world for you, make it yours. Do you not feel honored?"

Hermione nodded her head, but she realized that Draco was waging a terrible battle in his young heart. Ten years of Lucius's maniacal propaganda had made his mind believe, but his heart cried out that this was wrong, and cruel, and Hermione's heart broke for him. She barely noticed when Lucius stepped into the circle and a hush fell over the crowd. A burly man, his face hidden by his black hood, dragged the poor girl to her feet and released her bonds. She jerked herself away from him and stared Lucius Malfoy in the eye, her chin tilted defiantly.

"Bow, you insolent Mudblood!" Lucius roared, wringing appreciative cries from the crowd. The girl stared at him for a moment, and then spat at his feet. The Death Eaters shrieked with outrage, and then with delight, as Lucius pointed his wand and shouted "_Crucio!_" A single scream was torn from the girl's throat, and she doubled over in pain, but did not fall. Both Hermione's and Draco's hearts went out to her, the memory of being put under the same curse by the same man still fresh in their minds. Eventually, Lucius ended the curse, and seemed utterly outraged that the girl still stood, though her legs trembled weakly beneath her.

"Come here, Draco," Lucius said in a somewhat breathless voice. Hermione went forward on legs that trembled almost as much as the brave young witch's. Lucius turned Hermione to face the girl, who was just beginning to straighten up.

"Look at her," Lucius demanded, and Hermione had no choice but to do as he asked. Hermione -- or, rather, Draco -- was both fascinated and appalled by what was happening, and she watched, entranced, as the girl's huge eyes met hers. A single tear was trailing down her cheek, and her eyes were sad and resolute, but quite beyond fear. As if from far away, Lucius's voice drifted to Hermione's ears, and the hatred was gone from it, replaced by a kind of awe.

"Look at it's eyes," Lucius said, no small amount of wonder in his words. "No soul at all." Hermione did not agree, and neither did Draco, but before she could protest, Lucius and too many other Death Eaters to count screamed, "_Avada Kedavra!_" The dark night was alight with brilliant green, and Hermione was blinded for a moment. When her vision returned, the girl lay on the ground, her body unmarked, and her sapphire eyes staring up at Hermione. There was no soul in them now.

Hermione was too appalled to speak, to even move. The dead eyes of the pretty witch gazed up at her, accusingly, she thought. The tear was still on her cheek. Hermione could feel that Draco's mind was ready to rebel against its teachings when faced with the horror of the Death Eaters' actions, but just before that could happen, Lucius' poisonous voice was in her ear again, soft and reverent and strangely hypnotic.

"Have you ever seen anything so beautiful, Draco?" he asked, and when Hermione looked into his cold eyes, she saw that he believed what he said. She looked back at the staring eyes of the dead girl, at the tear trailing down her cheek, and felt Draco's mind lose the battle.

"Beautiful," she heard herself echo. And in that moment, she realized, it was true. There was a tragic and terrible beauty in the girl's wide, empty eyes. They were so blank now. Hermione could feel that Draco was already beginning to doubt that they had ever been anything else.

The girl's tear finally fell to the dust beneath her cheek, and disappeared.

Hermione opened her eyes and found herself sprawled on the floor of the Great Hall. She didn't have to remind herself to let go of Malfoy this time; her grip became too weak to hold on, and her hand fell limply to the floor beside her.

She couldn't tell if the horror and shock that seemed to saturate the air around her had originated with her or with Malfoy; she suspected it was both. She could still see the lovely, staring eyes of the dead Muggle-born witch, and they seemed to transpose themselves over the pained, horrified eyes of a very alive Draco Malfoy. Sapphire and silver seemed to meld together, until Hermione couldn't bear to look anymore. She scrambled to her feet and all but fled the Great Hall. Draco didn't try to stop her.

A/N: I don't know about you guys, but I'm wiped out. That was some deep stuff I touched on there. And is it just me, or does Lucius in this story scare the living crap out of you? I've never had any undue hostility toward him before this; I wonder where this nasty characterization of him came from. He's one sick, crazy dude in this chapter, isn't he? No wonder Draco's so messed up.

Just so you know, it might be a little longer than usual before the next chapter's out. I don't have it written, and I'm not entirely sure how I want them to deal with the ultra-intense stuff that just happened. It still shouldn't be too long. For all I know, another chapter will grab hold of me and write itself, like this one did. Till then, review, review, review!


	9. Reflections

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. In fact, with the exception of this laptop, a collection of shoes that I couldn't afford to buy in the first place, and a diamond necklace that my mother gave me for graduation, I own absolutely nothing of value. Really. Don't sue me. You'd have a better chance of getting money out of my cat. **

**A/N: I'm so sorry that this chapter took so long! I've been having a lot of trouble with it. If you were with me back when I posted Chapter 3, you will remember that I wasn't very happy with it. Well, I'm even _more_ not happy with _this_ chapter. I'll try to get the next chapter out tomorrow to make up for its utter crappiness.**

**Chapter 8: Reflections**

Hermione did not go back to her dormitory. Lavender and Parvati were still sleeping, and she knew that Harry, Ron, and the other players on the Gryffindor Quidditch team had an early practice that morning and were probably beginning to trudge sleepily into the common room. She couldn't face them yet, couldn't face anyone. She raced aimlessly up the castle's many stairways, finally finding herself in the astronomy tower.

She pushed open the doors and raced onto the deserted balcony, leaning against the rough stone railing as she caught her breath. It was easier to breathe there, in the crisp air of the late November morning, where she could barely smell the acrid smoke of the bonfire. She closed her eyes against the blinding morning sun, but when she did she saw only the vivid sapphire eyes of the dead witch, so she stared out over the Hogwarts grounds, seeing nothing but the pervasive grayness of the landscape.

Hermione didn't know what to do with the knowledge she had just acquired. When Malfoy had simply been the cruel, spoiled, Muggle-hating Slytherin that she had always assumed him to be, it had been so easy to hate him. She missed those times now, now that everything that had once been black and white was a suddenly a thousand shades of gray. Could she hate him now that she had seen the suffering of his childhood, felt the goodness in him that his father had so brutally stamped out? She wasn't sure, but then, she wasn't sure about much anymore.

A flash of white-gold on the ash-colored landscape drew her attention away from her thoughts. Malfoy's insecurity, anger, and confusion drifted up from the ground below, distant but undeniably present. He seemed to sense her at the same time, for he glanced around warily. Hermione made no attempt to hide herself, but Malfoy didn't see her, and, shrugging his aristocratic shoulders, he continued to make his way toward the lake.

Hermione watched with a curiosity she neither wanted nor could ignore as he walked purposefully to the edge of the lake, the surface of which was as smooth and colorless as sheet metal. He stopped at the edge and stared at the water unseeingly, and in her mind's eye Hermione saw him standing at the edge of another body of water, so much younger and less troubled than he was now. She supposed he was once again studying his reflection for outward signs of an inner weakness.

She wondered idly if he saw in his reflection what she saw as she looked at him. Not his expensive clothes or his aristocratic face, but the loneliness that seemed to drift around him in a cloud as gray as the glassy lake and his troubled eyes. If Hermione had been asked to paint a picture of desolation, she could not have come up with a more fitting image than Malfoy looking out over the steely lake, his charcoal-gray cloak blending with the rocks and pebbles beneath his feet.

Perhaps her mental painting would have been less heart-wrenching if she had not been so intimately aware of Malfoy's state of mind. His unhappiness raced around her on the wind that blew from the lake. Of the myriad of troubling emotions he was feeling, the most prominent was a deep and abiding hatred. Hermione was surprised to know instinctively that the hatred was not directed toward her this time. She wondered who else he could possibly despise with such intensity. He was also deeply confused about something, though she couldn't imagine what it was.

While Malfoy's discontent drifted hazily up from the grounds below, Hermione contemplated the memory she had just relived through his eyes. It had to be one of the most defining experiences of his life, but she had no idea how it had affected him. Had his acceptance of his father's sick philosophy been permanent, or had it been a temporary acquiescence, brought on by the trauma of watching an innocent victim lose her life at the hands of the man he revered above all others? Had the passing of time and distance from his father's poisonous presence allowed his inherent compassion to reemerge, or had his mind been irreparably broken on a sultry summer night so many years before? Did witnessing the murder of a Muggle-born witch define him because it cemented his hatred for all those of less than pure blood, or because it had finally made him see how horribly wrong his father and the rest of the Death Eaters really were?

If his attitude and behavior over the last six years was any indication, the night that was so vivid in his memory had made him into exactly what his father had meant him to be, but Hermione wasn't convinced. She thought she had enough insight into Malfoy to know that what he was feeling was often different, if not in direct contrast, to what he was saying. She supposed that if she really wanted to know, she would have to ask him, which was possibly the least pleasant option she could think of. She was relatively sure that the best outcome she could hope for in such a situation was a scoffing refusal. She thought it more likely that he would throw another of his curiously painful tirades at her and stalk off in fury, but she felt oddly compelled to face him about the horrific memory she had just witnessed. She pushed herself away from the balcony decisively and began the long trip down from the Astronomy tower.

Malfoy sat frozen in his seat as a very horrified and disturbed Hermione Granger fled the Great Hall, the dull thud of the enormous doors echoing in her wake. Of all the grim memories of his unpleasant past, that horrible night in the summer of his tenth year would have been the last one he would have wanted anyone to see. It had never even occurred to him that his traitorous mind would dredge up something he had worked so hard to repress and display it in all its sordid glory for his mortal enemy. It had been months since a nightmarish reliving of those events had jerked him from a terrified sleep. He had not thought of it since, for he had discovered long ago that to dwell on it would only drive him mad.

Completely ignoring the curious looks of the professor and the Ravenclaw boy, Malfoy stormed out of the Great Hall, not sure where he intended to go. The ceiling of the entrance hall soared above his head, and his footsteps echoed hollowly on the vast stone walls, but Malfoy felt closed in, suffocated by memories he didn't want and feelings he wanted even less. Almost blindly, he threw open the front doors and rushed out into the cold, bright morning.

Despite the too-bright sunlight, the Hogwarts grounds look gray and desolate. The bleakness of the landscape barely registered with Malfoy; all he noticed was that the air out here wasn't quite as confining and that the sight of the lake, so open and endless, was slightly easing his claustrophobia. He began to walk toward it, and was halfway there before he realized that he wasn't alone.

Granger's turbulent emotions were drifting hazily in the air around him, like wisps of smoke from a distant fire. He paused for a moment, trying to spot her, but soon realized that she was either very well hidden or too far away for him to see. Perhaps she was on the other side of the castle. That was just as well, because even though he had no illusions that he could put off seeing her forever, he couldn't face her again just yet. He shrugged his shoulders dismissively and turned back toward the lake, hoping vainly that its vast openness would somehow ease the pressure on his heart.

His shoes slipped dangerously over the slick stone and loose pebbles that had collected around a rocky outcropping on the lake's edge. He looked down at the glassy surface of the water, studying his reflection. He looked shaken, he realized with contempt. He looked exactly like what he was: a confused kid standing on the unstable foundations of crumbled life, a situation which he blamed solely on one person: his rat-bastard of a father.

Merlin, how he hated his father. He hated his weakness, his obedience, his warped and pathetic philosophy. Mostly, he hated what his father had done to him, how close he had come to making Draco into another mindless, inhuman servant of a half-blooded, hypocritical psychopath. He had decided long ago that he would die before he sacrificed his dignity and, most likely, his sanity to a cause that had been perverted by a lust for power and the madness of those who sought it.

Malfoy believed in preserving the purity of magical blood, believed that there was a class system to the magical community and that he, and others like him, was at the top of it. For a while, he had even believed that the Dark Lord and his loyal Death Eaters had the right idea. The more time he spent at Hogwarts, however, far away from his father's hypnotic words and pervasive Darkness that was a part of daily life at Malfoy Manor, the more he had begun to see how twisted the Dark Lord's philosophy had become. The life of the Death Eaters seemed wretched and pathetic to him now. It turned his stomach to think of once-noble and respectable pure-bloods cowering at the feet of a deranged killer with delusions of grandeur and the filthy blood Muggles running in his veins.

A flash of movement that was reflected on the mirror-like surface of the water drew his attention, and Malfoy turned just in time to see Granger flee from the astronomy tower balcony and disappear into the castle again. He supposed she had been watching him, and he wondered what she had been thinking that had made her so desperately confused that her uncertainty hung in the air around her even after she was gone from it.

Granger. He was glad she was inside the castle, because he knew that if she had remained on the balcony she would be able to feel the conflicting emotions she was arousing in him. She had been so hurt by his words in the Great Hall, and her pain had surprised him. She had always seemed so impenetrably strong, so nauseatingly self-assured. Nothing he had ever said to her seemed to do anything but annoy her, which he suspected had more to do with his childish spitefulness than any hurt feelings on her part. He had long ago given up on causing her pain with his insults; he taunted her now for the sheer pleasure of her comebacks, which were always immeasurably more clever than anyone else's.

He wondered, now, how many times his offhanded comments had pierced her heart, how many tears she had shed over his juvenile taunts. He felt a foreign and unwelcome tendril of guilt squeeze his heart painfully. He didn't like that he had hurt her, and he didn't like that he was sorry he had, and he _really_ didn't like how her wounded eyes, still so proud and dignified even though they were clouded with tears, had reminded him of the eyes of the Muggle-born witch just before his father had struck her down with his useless rage.

He had never learned her name, but she haunted him even now. It had been several years before Draco realized the significance of that night. He could not pinpoint exactly when he had begun to doubt in the path that had been chosen for him, but he could remember with terrifying clarity the moment that he had begun to doubt in his own ability to follow it. That witch, despite her inferior blood and her questionable right to invade upon the world of wizards and magic, had been innocent. She had possessed a soul no different from his own. That did not, in his opinion, make her his equal, but neither did it make her expendable. Draco had realized in that moment that, when the time came, he would not be able to take an innocent life. It was the beginning of the gradual unraveling of his father's careful teachings. He would always be grateful to that witch, who, if she was anything like Granger (and he suspected she was), would probably be happy to know that her death had probably saved the lives of countless others who would now never die at the hands of Draco Malfoy.

Draco was still staring down into the water, gazing blankly into the eyes of his reflection, when he heard the doors of the castle creak open and felt Granger's presence wash over him like the cool breeze that whispered off the lake. He didn't turn to look at her, but he knew instinctively that she was coming to the lake, just as he knew that, if she asked him about the memory, he would be unable to lie to her. She stopped beside him, and his eyes met hers in the silvery water. For an instant, he thought they looked less honey-brown than sapphire blue, but then the wind sent ripples through the water, and when it calmed again, they were the same boring shade of brown they had always been, and for that he was grateful.

Neither said anything, but a few moments later, when Hermione turned to go back into the castle, Draco followed her. Behind them, the dark water now reflected nothing but the pale gray sky.

**A/N: That was rather angsty, wasn't it? I'm not usually a good angst writer, which might be why I'm so unhappy with this. I had a lot of trouble with the part from Hermione's POV, but Draco's reflections flowed much more easily. I'll try to get the next chapter out tomorrow, and I'll try to remember that the next time I write angst, I just need to keep Hermione out of it!**


	10. What Makes a Person Evil

Disclaimer: Who am I even kidding with this anymore? If you don't know that I don't own the Harry Potter universe by now, than I seriously doubt that you possess the mental capacity to pose any real legal threat to me.

Wow! For what I _still_ insist is a crappy piece of writing on my part, Chapter 8 received a _lot_ of reviews--almost 40! It absolutely made my night when I got home last night and found I had 26 new reviews to read and that the hits on this story had jumped by 1500 since that afternoon! **Also, THIS STORY HAS NOW PASSED THE 100 REVIEWS MARK! YAY! A special thanks to secretspells311, my 100th reviewer!**

A/N: I was really surprised by the response I got to Chapter 8. I still don't like it, but I got a lot of praise for it. I'm not complaining; quite the contrary! It just goes to show that I'm my own worst critic, I guess. This chapter is much more similar to the pre-witch-memory chapters, just so you know, and if it seems short, it's because 1) it is, 2) it's building up to Chapter 10, which will feature another very revealing memory, and 3) you just had a very long and difficult-to-write chapter yesterday! Don't be greedy! Just kidding, I love you guys! Here is Chapter 9, next day, as promised! Enjoy!

**Chapter 9: What Makes a Person Evil**

They didn't return to the Great Hall, where the Ravenclaw boy appeared to be regaling a small group of early-risers with what was undoubtedly a highly exaggerated version of the odd interaction between the most infamous enemies in recent Hogwarts memory. Malfoy knew that, by lunch, the story would not only have spread to the entire student population, but would probably include a session of passionate snogging, a screaming, wall-rattling row, and/or a proposal of marriage.

Predictably, Hermione led them to the library. At this early hour, Madam Pince had not yet arrived to preside over her domain, and all sensible students were either sleeping in (lazy, insufferable gits, he thought derisively) or enjoying their Saturday morning by being anywhere _but_ the library. The cavernous space was empty but for them and countless rows of books.

Despite the fact that they were obviously alone, Hermione led him to a distant and secluded corner. When they reached it, her sense of comfort and peacefulness told him that this tiny table was her sanctuary, her personal space, probably the only one she had. He had seen the way the Gryffindors lived: always loud, always invading each other's space, always hugging and touching and talking and _never_ alone. No wonder they were all mad as hatters; all that togetherness would be enough to drive anyone completely insane.

Hermione seated herself at the table, and Malfoy sat across from her. They still hadn't spoken a word, and he could feel her gathering her courage to say whatever it was that had bothered her enough to make her track him down.

"I'm sorry." He blinked at her, utterly shocked. Of all the things he expected to hear her say, that had not been among them.

"What?" He was sure he must have heard her wrong.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "What happened . . . I know it's painful for you." He scowled at her half-heartedly, but she ignored him. "I didn't have a right to invade on it. I'd take it back if I could."

He opened his mouth to respond, and then snapped it shut again. He had been about to thank her, he realized. That was just unacceptable. Malfoy didn't thank _anyone_, let alone interfering, annoyingly sincere Muggle-borns

"Is that all you have to say?" he asked harshly. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he felt her flash of annoyance. It felt good, actually. It felt normal.

"No, as a matter of fact, that isn't all I have to say," she said primly, smoothing a wrinkle out of her skirt to avoid eye contact with him. When she looked back up, he wished she hadn't. Her face was so serious, her eyes so concerned. It made him uncomfortable. People were never concerned about him.

"Are you a Death Eater?" she asked suddenly. The bluntness of her inquiry temporarily robbed him of the ability to respond. He realized he had been struck speechless more in the last three days than in all the rest of his life put together. It was rather disconcerting.

"No, I'm not," he said through gritted teeth.

"Are you _going_ to be?" she pressed.

"No," he growled. She accepted his responses calmly, with a nod of her serious head, almost as if she had been expecting those answers. If the possibility of his membership among the Dark Lord's followers was not the question on her mind, what could it possibly be?

"Do you really believe all that Mudblood rubbish?" she said suddenly and very quickly. He considered seriously before answering.

"Do you really want to know?" he asked softly.

"_Yes_," she said emphatically. It was terribly important to her, he realized. He felt an odd grimness in his heart as he thought of the outburst his answer would undoubtedly provoke, but he spoke quickly before he could change his mind.

"Then, yes, I do." The hurt in her eyes was nothing compared to the hurt that washed over the table from her and coursed through Draco's veins. Damn, he wished he hadn't said anything. She looked so . . . _disappointed_.

"How can you?" she asked in a disbelieving whisper. "That girl . . . You knew it was wrong. I could feel it."

"It _was_ wrong," he said, unsure why it was so important to make her understand. "It was wrong to kill her. She was innocent, and her life was taken unfairly." Granger looked at him uncomprehendingly, her mind still clouded by confusion and shocked disappointment.

"But you just said --" she began, but he cut her off with an impatient wave of his hand.

"I said I believed that Muggle-borns should be kept out of the world of magic. I didn't say they deserved to be killed or tortured or made into sport. They have every right to a life free of fear, but not here." He gestured vaguely at the books of spells and magical history that surrounded them. "This is my world. It is mine because my ancestors fought for it, died to keep it secret and safe." She scowled at him and opened her mouth to interrupt, but he shook his head. "Let me talk, Granger. You said you wanted the truth. This is it. Magic is _my_ birthright, not yours. Muggle-borns have their own world, which is theirs because millions of people lived and died to make it theirs. That's where they belong." She stared at him silently for a moment.

"You really believe all that, don't you?" she asked.

"You know I do." And she did. He was just beginning to feel pleased with himself for getting through to her, for making her see his side of things, when an alarming anger flared up inside her like a fire doused in gasoline and vodka. Before he could react, she was out of her chair, leaning across the table with her eyes blazing, and he had to draw on ever Seeker reflex he possessed to dodge the finger she was jabbing in his face to punctuate every insulting adjective she shrieked at him.

"You are undoubtedly the most arrogant, narrow-minded, self-important, intolerant, absolutely insufferable _jackass_ that I've ever met in my _life_!" The finger-jab that emphasized the last word of her tirade was so violent that Malfoy toppled backward out of his chair in his attempt to avoid it. He stared up at her from the floor with an open mouth.

"Granger! What the hell?" He scrambled backward as she rounded the table with a murderous look in her flashing eyes.

"You think that just because you don't want to go about slaughtering innocent people, that makes you _noble_ and _righteous_? Guess what? Being a prejudiced, small-minded, elitist _prick_ is just _fractionally_ better than being a prejudiced, small-minded, elitist _murderer_! So before you start spouting off all your fine, upstanding ideals again, you might consider that maybe it isn't killing the people you hate that makes a person evil; maybe it's hating them in the first place." With that, she stepped over him and stormed out of the library, her fury stinging the air painfully in her wake.

For a moment, Draco remained sprawled on the floor, staring at the spot Hermione had so recently occupied. Then he stood up, picked up his overturned chair, and began to follow the lingering trail of Hermione's anger.

If there was one thing Draco was going to make sure of in this strange, new, upside-down world that was his life, it was that Hermione Granger was _not_ going to get the last word.

**A/N: I'll have Chapter 10 out by the end of the week. In the meantime, REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW! **


	11. Her Darkest Night

Disclaimer: How about this? As soon as I hit the lottery, develop the ability to telepathically influence the decisions of others, buy the rights to the Harry Potter universe from the great and most admirable J.K. Rowling, and therefore own Harry Potter, I'll let you know. Until then, let's just assume I don't.

A/N: Okay, don't hate me, but I suppose it's time to tell you guys that I will be going on vacation for a week and a half. Starting Wednesday. _Ducks behind her desk for cover from any objects that are thrown in her direction_. Don't hate me! I will update on Tuesday night, and try to get another chapter written before I leave so I can post it approximately halfway through the trip. When I return, updates will continue at their usual pace. Please, please don't hate me!

So this chapter is slighter longer than most are, and once again I am not entirely happy with it. Knowing how I feel about keeping Hermione true to the books, you'll understand why. Tell me what you think, please. On to the chapter!

Chapter 10: Her Darkest Night

He found her in an empty classroom, staring out the window and positively seething with fury. She didn't turn to look at him when he walked in.

"Go. Away." He ignored the command she issued through gritted teeth and moved deftly across the room to stand a few feet away from her still, tense form. At this distance, her rage was almost powerful enough to send him staggering back.

"I'm _not_ evil, Granger," he said to the back of her bushy head. The sound that issued from her throat might have been intended as a derisive laugh, but it came out nearer to a sob. She turned to look at him with bitter disappointment and something akin to betrayal in her turbulent eyes.

"Really? Well, you do a fine job of hiding it." She was just about to turn away dismissively again, but he moved forward until their noses were inches apart. She glared back up at him with a fury to match his own, her eyes slitted and defiant.

"What are you going to do, Malfoy?" she asked, almost tauntingly. "Stare at me until I see reason and understand that I am an inferior life form? Talk me to death with all your pretty, empty words about heritage and ancestry and birthrights?" She tilted her head as though considering an idea that had just occurred to her. Malfoy sensed a dangerous and foreign recklessness rising in her, and he knew that whatever came out of her mouth next would be something they would both regret. "Or perhaps you'll just save yourself the trouble and get rid of me, the way your father would?"

He wondered vaguely when she had acquired so much power over him that so few words could hurt him so deeply. She had seen the monster his father had become, seen the atrocities he had committed. To hear her compare him to Lucius when she had been as much a victim of his cruelty as Draco himself felt oddly and horribly like . . . _betrayal._

"I am _not_ my father!" He was yelling now, though she was still no more than few inches in front of him. Whatever remorse she had felt (and, had he been calmer, he would have realized that it was both abundant and sincere) vanished, replaced by still more anger. He would not have thought calm, logical Granger capable of feeling anything so passionately.

"No, you're not!" she agreed, yelling right back at him. "You're not your father because your_ father_ has been festering in his hate for forty years instead of seventeen. That's what hate does to a person, you know. It consumes them. He's had half a lifetime to let his prejudice poison him, eat him alive from the inside, hollow him out until all that was left was the hatred. You're not your father yet, Malfoy, but if you don't wake up soon, you _will_ be!"

Malfoy wasn't sure exactly what look came across his face when she said this, but whatever it was, it caused Hermione to take a step back and experience a thrill of fear. When he spoke, his voice was dangerously soft, and the words were out of his mouth before he'd even realized he was going to say them.

"You know nothing of me _or_ my father. Don't speak of what you don't understand, you filthy Mudblood." The instant he said it, he would have given all the gold in his Gringotts vault (well, _most_ of it) to take it back. If he thought he had hurt her in the Great Hall, it was nothing compared to what that word (a word he himself had heard so many times that it barely carried any more meaning for him than the term 'Muggle-born') did to her. He wondered if it was possible for a person's eyes to _shatter_, because that's certainly what hers seemed to do.

He fully intended to swallow his pride and apologize, but something in those shattered eyes gave him pause. He had the strangest sensation of déjà vu, and recognized why the look in her eyes seemed so familiar just in time to react. He'd seen that look once before: on a dreary afternoon in their third year, when she had shocked him speechless by slapping him smartly across the face. This time, he caught her wrist just before her open palm could connect with his cheek. The instant he did so, he realized his mistake, but it was too late to take it back. The room seemed to spin very quickly out of focus, and the last clear image he had was of those wounded, accusing eyes.

When at last he could breathe again, he opened his eyes . . . And found himself walking slowly out of the Hogwarts library. He -- well, Hermione -- seemed to be in no hurry to get where he was going, and his feet all but dragged along the rough stone floor. He gradually became aware of how utterly exhausted he was. His limbs felt stiff and weary, and the too-full backpack on his shoulders was shooting dreadful pains up and down his back. No wonder Granger was always so stern and unsmiling: if _he_ walked around with twice his weight in books slung over his back, he supposed he would be a bit snappish as well.

He passed a window, and saw, far below him, a single, dim light from the gamekeeper's cottage. It must have been very late, for it was the only light he could see anywhere. The night sky was utterly empty of stars, and he suddenly realized that Hermione felt a strange and almost unhealthy feeling of kinship with the darkness. Before he could further examine this disturbing thought, he realized that he had stopped in front of an enormous painting of an enormous woman, who was wearing a frilly pink dress and dozing lightly in her frame.

"_Atrum vicis_" he heard himself self say in Granger's voice, though it sounded much more hoarse and defeated than he was used to hearing it. The woman nodded drowsily, and her portrait swung open on a hidden hinge to reveal a hole in the stone wall. Finally, after nearly seven years, he had discovered the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, but he found it wasn't as much of a thrill as he might have once thought it to be. He coaxed his weary body through the opening, hoping that, on the other end, he would find relief from his load of books and from Hermione's gloomy state of mind.

The Gryffindor common room looked much as he would have guessed it did: warm, rich shades of gold and scarlet everywhere, and furniture that emphasized comfort and practicality rather than quality and beauty. Though he would personally have rather slept on the cold stone floor of the entrance hall than spend time here, he had expected Hermione to find comfort and solace in her common room and the sight of her friends, who were seated around the fireplace and talking companionably about an upcoming trip to Hogsmeade. Much to his confusion, she found neither. If anything, he thought her uncharacteristic gloominess deepened as she took in her surroundings and listened to the quiet laughter of the group near the fire.

Malfoy was inexpressibly grateful when he found himself slipping the book bag from his shoulders and placing it on a nearby table. His respite was brief, however, because as the discomfort in his shoulders and back receded, awareness of his throbbing head and tired, scratchy eyes increased, and, if possible, his weariness seemed even more pronounced.

As he stood in the shadows watching the laughing group by the fire, he felt Granger rein in her longing to join them. In the flickering firelight, Weasley had a smile on his face, but Hermione was remembering him glaring angrily at her, furious and resentful words flying back and forth between them. With a heavy heart, Malfoy retreated further into the darkness, scooping up the discarded bag and passing silently from the room.

The tall spiral staircase he found himself climbing seemed to go on forever. He wondered if it was really as tall as it seemed, or if Hermione's exhausted limbs were playing tricks with his tired mind. When he finally reached the top, he opened a door labeled '3rd Years' and trudged inside.

Three four-posters were spaced evenly around the circular room. In two beds, the crimson curtains were drawn, and soft snoring issued from the one on the left. He dragged his weary body over to the farthest bed, where the curtains hung open and a single candle burned on the book-laden desk.

Sitting down on the edge of the four-poster, he began to slowly unpack the numerous books and rolls of parchment that strained the seams of Hermione's book bag. With each textbook that was revealed, Hermione's stress increased, weighing heavily on her already-burden mind. How many subjects was she taking? No wonder she was so anxious; there simply wasn't enough _time_ to study all the things she apparently was.

The last thing he pulled from the bag was a small planner. He flipped it open with resignation and stared down at pages crammed with impossibly small writing, lists of assignments and due dates so long that they required pages and pages of space. It wasn't _possible_ to do so much, Draco thought in his own mind. It just couldn't be done. It was little wonder that she was dead on her feet.

He balanced the planner atop one of the towering piles of books on the desk, and as he did so, his eyes were drawn to one of the other innumerable books scattered over its surface: _The Legal History of Marauding Beasts: 1750 to Present _. The sight brought a strange, hopeless sadness to Hermione's heart, and Draco saw in her mind's eye several sleepless nights of research and tearful goodbye to the gamekeeper and a hippogriff--the same one, he realized angrily, that had attacked him during his first-ever Care of Magical Creatures lesson. He wondered why that thought of that idiotic oaf and his murderous pet would inspire such painful grief. Furthermore, he wondered what exactly about this night made it so important; as far as he could see, he was simply witnessing the end of a rather long, stressful day in the life of a girl whose very nature demanded a certain amount of long, stressful days. What, he wondered, could possibly be different about this one?

Though Malfoy thought the next logical step would be to throw himself down upon the gold and scarlet pillows and attempt to sleep away the utter exhaustion that was only partly of the body, he realized that Hermione had no inclination to lie down. Too many things to think about, he realized. She would lie awake for hours, until the unwelcome sun rose over lake, too weary to rest. He'd had a few nights like that himself, and understood.

Instead of making a useless attempt at slumber, he found himself wandering over to one of the many-paned windows that circled Gryffindor Tower. The window was thrown open into the endlessly black night, which was unbroken by the moon or stars. He couldn't even see a glimmer of reflected light from the castle on the lake or in the trees. It was the darkest night either of them had ever seen, and he, at least, had seen his share.

When Hermione's body began to pull itself up stiffly to sit on the window ledge, Draco was too surprised to resist (not that he could have). His aching feet were still clad in boring, sensible shoes that Draco himself wouldn't have been caught dead in. He swung them up onto the ledge with him, so that he sat sideways with his back against the cool stone. He was suddenly aware that he was holding in his hands what felt like a small hourglass, and rubbing its cold glass edges in a thoughtful manner. He wanted to look down and see what it was, but Hermione's eyes were fixed on the utter blackness of the night outside her window.

Looking out into the infinite blackness, he felt again that strange and unhealthy kinship with it, almost as if Hermione felt herself to be a part of it. He stopped allowing his own mind to wander and tried to focus on whatever Hermione was thinking that could inspire such an uncharacteristic feeling. After a moment's concentration, he was able to pick up thoughts of work that never seemed to end, of expectations that seemed more unreachable every day, of Hagrid's guileless trust in her ability and the dark knowledge that she would fail him, of Weasley's hard eyes and angry words, of her own quiet and desperate lonliness, of the bone-deep exhaustion that neither sleep nor rest could soothe. She was thinking, he realized with rising panic, that the darkness looked so comforting, so peaceful, so wonderfully empty of people and responsibility. She was thinking that it would probably be Monday, when a professor asked a question that no one could answer, before anyone realized she was gone . . .

In that instant, his foot slipped on the ledge with a scraping sound that seemed as loud as a gunshot in the silence. A few loose pebbles fell into the bottomless darkness, and though he listened breathlessly for a long while, he never heard them hit the ground. He felt Hermione suddenly realize where her train of thought had been leading and how close she had come to following those pebbles into the suffocating blackness. With a surge of terror and self-protective instinct, Draco scrambled off the ledge and into the safety of the warm dormitory. He slammed the window shut so quickly that the resulting bang was loud enough to draw sleepy, inquiring grumbles from the two occupied beds. Draco paid them no mind as he firmly secured the latch and then leaned against the wall to calm his rapidly beating heart which, oddly enough, seemed slightly lighter than it had all night.

The abandoned classroom seemed blindingly bright when Draco returned to it, or perhaps it was only that it lacked the pervasive darkness of the memory, which had very little to do with lack of light. Granger's face was immobilized with terror and humiliation. He supposed his must be frozen in shock.

It was a long time before the numbness in his fingers reminded him to release Granger's wrist. Her arm dropped to her side, and though the angry red marks his fingers had left had to be painful, she made no sound of discomfort and her gaze remained locked on his.

"Please don't tell anyone," she whispered desperately. Her voice seemed impossibly loud.

"I won't," he whispered back. She nodded, and walked silently from the room. It was a long time before Draco found the strength to do the same.

A/N: So. Like it? Hate it? What do you think? Again, I hate to mess around with Hermione's past, but I don't think it's too far fetched. I've been re-reading the books to prepare for Book 6 and I paid particular attention to the Prisoner of Azkaban, because I feel like that was one of the hardest times of Hermione's life. This memory is supposed to take place on the Friday night before the trip to Hogsmeade when Harry messes with Malfoy's head while under his invisibility cloak. This was the day of Buckbeak's first trial, and a few days after a particularly bad fight with Ron regarding Scabbers' "death" and Hermione's intention of ratting Harry out if he sneaks into Hogsmeade. I thought it would probably be one of the hardest times of her life, and therefore a good setting for this kind of memory. I did my research, as you can tell. I wanted to timeline right.


	12. Friends and Enemies

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the people or places that exist in his universe. I wouldn't mind owning Draco, though (no, not like _that. _Get your minds out of the gutter). Then he could stand around looking all broody and gorgeous, and do things for me like reach the stuff on the top shelf and open jars. A pretty kitchen appliance, if you will.

A/N: So here's the plan. I'll post the next chapter on either Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. It won't have any author's notes or review responses attached. I love you guys, but not that much. It will be the chapter, simple and straightforward. That doesn't mean you get out of reviewing, though! When I get back, I will respond to the reviews from both chapters, and there had better be a lot of them (J/K)! Review responses at the end!

Chapter 11: Friends and Enemies

Hermione had walked from the classroom with admirable composure, but by the time she reached Gryffindor tower what seemed like an eternity later, her legs burned from running up innumerable staircases, and her lungs were screaming for air. She wasn't entirely sure what she had been trying to outrun -- Malfoy, memories, herself -- but it hadn't worked, because she felt no less hunted as she gasped the password at the Fat Lady than she had as she'd stared into Malfoy's shocked and disbelieving eyes.

She scrambled ungracefully through the portrait hole, still drawing air into her greedy lungs in noisy gasps that sounded suspiciously like sobbing. Seven pairs of sleepy, surprised eyes turned to look at her. She didn't know why the Quidditch team hadn't left for practice yet, but she didn't care. Without speaking a word to any of them, she ran across the room and threw herself rather inelegantly into Harry's arms, burying her face in his chest as her tears began to fall.

Harry didn't seem to know what to do about this new development for a moment. His arms went around her rather stiffly at first, but he soon relaxed and began stroking her hair in a comforting manner. Hermione felt rather than saw Ron come to stand next to them, and she could just picture his face, darkened with concern and slight panic as it always was when she behaved emotionally.

"Go on and start running drills," Harry instructed the rest of the team, his chest rumbling beneath Hermione's ear. Apparently, no one moved, because Harry's next words were slightly impatient. "Go on, then. We'll be out in a while. Remember what I said about that second formation, Dennis. You need to remember to give yourself enough space to maneuver. You're were practically in Ginny's lap last time we practiced."

The sound of shuffling feet and curious whispers began to move toward the portrait hole. After nearly seven years of friendship, Harry and Ron had learned that the best way to respond to one of Hermione's emotional outbursts was to remain silent, nod encouragingly, and offer verbal and physical comfort as needed. Therefore, they led her over to a couch, Harry's arm around her shoulder and Ron's hands grasping one of hers tightly. Their quiet kindness heaped guilt upon her heart even as it gave her strength. She had never told them about the dark night in their third year when her will, usually so strong, had wavered without them there to support it. She intended to tell them now, but not until her tears ran dry, and at the moment, that didn't seem likely to happen in the foreseeable future.

She cried as though her very heart was breaking, as though she would never stop. She cried for an innocent, tortured little boy who had grown up to be an angry young man, and for another who had never had the chance to grow up at all. She cried for a young Muggle-born witch whose life had been taken on a starless night, and for another whose life had almost been lost to a similar darkness. Each tear seemed to lessen the weight that had been steadily building in her heart over the last three days, and each shuddering breath was easier than the last.

Eventually, Hermione was able to choke out the events that had led up to her rather dramatic entrance into the common room, including the memory Malfoy had seen the previous day, his remarkable revelation regarding Delilah James' journals, their heated fight following yet another memory (she refused to tell them about what she had seen in Malfoy's past), and, finally, the terrible night she had just been forced to relive in her mind.

As she haltingly described the events of her memory, Harry's arm tightened around her, and his eyes grew dark with guilt and then wide with horror. Ron's reactions varied from flushing a deep magenta as she reminded him of their fight, to going so deathly pale that even his freckles seemed lighter when she revealed where her tired mind had been leading itself. When she was finished, Harry pulled her tightly to him, and she was surprised to feel him trembling.

"I'm so sorry we weren't there for you," he whispered into her hair. She almost started crying again.

"You didn't know."

"We should have." Harry pulled back to look at her with eyes that were full of guilt and compassion. "You never have to go through that kind of thing alone, you know. Not ever."

"I know," she replied, and she meant it. It seemed so obvious now, though it hadn't then. She supposed that was the sort of thing that was easier to know in the day light with friends all around than alone in the middle of the night.

She turned to Ron. Of the two, she expected Ron to take the news hardest. Indeed, he looked considerably worse than Harry, with his face a sickly sort of green and his eyes swimming in shocked horror. For a moment, he did nothing but stare at her.

"How can you even speak to me?" Ron asked finally. His cobalt blue eyes were utterly distraught when they finally met hers. "If I hadn't been such a jackass about Scabbers, you might not have . . ." He waved his hand, apparently unable or unwilling to say the word. His face looked utterly inconsolable. "It was all my fault. You must hate me."

Hermione surprised them both by flinging her arms around Ron's neck and burying her head in his shoulder. How could she ever hate him? He was stubborn, occasionally idiotic, and often bad tempered, but he loved her fiercely, as he loved every one of his siblings, both real and honorary. He and Harry had saved her life the day they rescued her from the mountain troll, in more ways than one. Until them, she had been alone in a foreign world, friendless and frightened and trying very hard to seem like she wasn't. They had saved her from a life of loneliness and solitude, and she was more grateful to them then either would ever know.

"It wasn't anyone's fault, Ron, except maybe mine for trying to do so much and insisting on doing it alone. And nothing you could ever do could make me hate you." He hugged her back fiercely, which was a feat in itself considering how uncomfortable he usually was with physical displays of affection.

Hermione pulled away from him, feeling stronger and lighter than she had in days, perhaps in years. She should have come to them right away, she realized. Whatever burden she had been carrying, they now carried it together.

"It was a long time ago," she said firmly. "And it's over. No need to talk about it anymore." So they didn't. Instead, as the dormitories slowly emptied and their fellow Gryffindors went out to enjoy their Saturday, they simply sat and talked, about school and Quidditch and an upcoming Hogsmeade weekend, about whatever came to mind. Never once did they mention Malfoy, or Delilah James, or the strange events of the last three days. They had no place there, amidst their quiet camaraderie and easy laughter. Outside the window the Gryffindor Quidditch team soared in the sunlight, utterly forgotten.

Malfoy did not have a Harry and Ron with whom he could seek counsel and advice. If he had, he would've had no idea what to do with them. Such a relationship was foreign to him; he would have been unable to understand it. In lieu of confidants, Draco turned to the lake for solace.

He had not ended up at the lakeshore earlier that morning by chance; his panicked mind had sought the place that he found safest and most comforting, and it had not led him astray. He had been coming there to think since his first-year, when the silvery water had seemed more familiar to him than his own room back at Malfoy Manor. It was his haven, one of the only things he had ever treasured at Hogwarts.

He sat on an outcropping of rock, staring out over the steely water with blank, steely eyes, and for possibly the first time ever, he was not thinking of himself. His thoughts were instead on a bushy-haired witch with sad, old eyes, who had just proven herself to be far less perfect and far more human than he would have ever thought possible.

He could barely believe that logical, serious, unflappable Hermione Granger, admired and well-liked by possibly everyone but him, had ever been driven to such terrible despair. He was inexplicably certain that she would never have acted upon her alarming train of thought. In fact, he had never felt anything as powerful as the desire to live that seized her as soon as she realized where her thoughts were wandering. Her hopelessness had been brief, practically instantaneous, but it had been _there_. He knew not what to make of that.

He tried to incorporate this new information into his mental image of Granger, and found that it couldn't be done. Whoever he had thought she was -- a know-it-all, a Mudblood, an self-righteous idealist, and, most unforgivable of all, a blind follower of the Boy-Who-Lived-to-be-a-Pain-in-His-Ass -- he had been grievously mistaken. Granger was far more complex than anyone gave her credit for, not even her revoltingly loyal and loving friends. Gryffindors, after all, were known for their (in his opinion, idiotic and reckless) bravery, not their observational skills. Her simple, happy façade was so flawless that even he, who would have sold his tarnished soul for a glimpse of a weakness, had been unable to see past it.

She was strong and intelligent and complicated and exquisitely fallible, but what did that mean? Was she still his enemy? Could anyone who knew her the way he did really hate her? He was finding it difficult to summon quite as much loathing for her as usual, and he didn't like that that one bit.

He was beginning to realize that, in an alarming amount of ways, they were far too much alike for comfort. He knew what it was to be lonely, to experience loss and grief too profound for his young age, to put forth an image that belied his complex and perhaps unexpected nature. They were so alike, and yet so different, like two sides of the same coin. It was not an analogy or a situation that he particularly wanted to explore.

The only thing to do, he decided, was pray that the next morning's post would bring answers and a much-needed escape from this unwanted intimacy. Perhaps, when he no longer had to feel her compassion and her quiet strength, no longer had to see her in pain she had done nothing to deserve, he could remember all the reasons that he hated her. Perhaps, after a while, he would even be able to call her his enemy again without hearing a nagging voice in his head that told him he was lying through his teeth.

A/N: Sorry it was a little shorter than last chapter. I happen to think that it's considerably _better_ than last chapter, so I suppose it's a fair trade. Do you think Draco's change of heart is happening too quickly? If you do, I can always make him do something really Draco-like and slow it down a bit. Let me know!

Special Author's Note: Since this will be the last time we converse (and I do like to think I converse with you guys) before then, I would like to wish everyone a thoroughly awesome and enjoyable experience reading the Half-Blood Prince (can you hear the trumpets sound and the angels sing?)! I'm practically jumping up and down as I pack, and I'm driving my family (none of whom have the least interest in Harry Potter -- I suspect I was adopted) absolutely insane because it's all I talk about! I have my copy reserved at the ONLY FREAKIN' BOOKSTORE ON THE ISLAND, which doesn't open until 8:00 IN THE MORNING (sob), and intend to happily give up two days of normal vacationing to sit on the beach and read HBP. Enjoy standing in midnight lines with fellow Harry Potter fanatics! Revel in staying up all night to read it and then wishing you'd savored it more! Live long and prosper! (Whoops, wrong completely dorky universe that I know WAY too much about)


	13. The Journals of Delilah James

Disclaimer: If I owned the Harry Potter universe, which I don't, let me just say that a few things would be turning out a little differently. _cough-the-end-of-the-half-blood-prince-cough_

YAY FOR MORE THAN 200 REVIEWS! I want to send a huge thank you to all my reviewers for their lovely praise, their useful criticisms and suggestions, their insightful thoughts, and their wonderful, funny, oh-so-appreciated comments! I love you guys!

A/N: Okay, you hate me, I know. I said I was going to post this last Tuesday, and obviously I didn't. Here's the way it worked out. I thought I was going to have an Internet connection while I was gone, but I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Then, I arrived home _very_ late Sunday night and slept through most of yesterday. I didn't feel like messing with posting a chapter last night, because that would have required a last sweep for grammatical and spelling errors and then writing out review responses, and I just wasn't up for that. Here it is, if a week late. Better late than never, though, right?

Quick summary of what's happened so far, since it's been two weeks and HBP has happened between now and then (if you remember it all, don't read this): While testing the _Partis Sensus_ potion during a lesson, Hermione and Draco experienced a rare side effect called the _Iunctus Mens _Effect. The symptoms: a permanent empathic link with one another, implied though not explored connections involving physical sensations and dreams, and the ability to relive the most defining memories of each other's pasts though physical contact when under extreme emotional stress. Memories relived so far: Draco being tortured by his father, the death of Hermione's younger brother, the first murder Draco ever witnessed, and a night in which Hermione _briefly_ considered suicide. Whoa, heavy stuff. All of this is making them both question how they see each other, and neither of them likes that one bit. One glimmer of hope remains for our beloved characters. A potions researcher named Delilah James was once under the influence of the _Iunctus Mens_, and it is believed that her personal journals, lost when she was married, contain some kind of spell or potion that can counteract its effects. Miss James, as it turns out, was married to a member of the Malfoy family, and her journals are in the family archives. Draco has sent for them, and they are supposed to arrive this morning, as a matter of fact. There you go, all caught up. On with the chapter!

Chapter 12: The Journals of Delilah James

Hermione awoke the next morning with golden sunlight in her eyes and a fading memory of a gripping nightmare that she suspected had not been her own. She could not remember what had transpired in the shadowy world of her dreams, but it had been dark there, the sort of dark that had less to do with a lack of light than with a lack of hope. Utterly exhausted from the events of the day before, she had fallen asleep before the sun had even fully set. Despite the extra hours of sleep, she felt curiously un-rested, as though her slumber had been more of a dream than the nightmare that had haunted it.

She had been sitting on the edge of her four-poster for several minutes, attempting vainly to clear the cobwebs of sleep from her mind, when she remembered what day it was, and what was supposed to arrive by that morning's post. Her sleepiness forgotten, she leapt from the bed and dressed quickly. Less than ten minutes later, she stood breathlessly in the doorway of the Great Hall.

She had known the instant she stepped in the door that he wasn't there, but she scanned the room for him anyway. Not only was the Slytherin table utterly deserted, but the entire hall seemed to be completely empty of occupants. She was still standing there, seriously considering giving in to a little useless but satisfying pouting, when she noticed a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. She had just turned her head to further investigate it when the source, a large, regal-looking eagle owl, took to the air and soared majestically to her side, perching on the head of a statue.

"Hello," she said quietly to the owl, who gazed at her with amber eyes that seemed utterly unimpressed. The owl reached out one leg and offered her the note he was carrying. She took it, and before she had even opened it, the owl had spread his magnificent wings and disappeared through one of the Great Hall's many windows.

The note she now held in her hands was little more than a scrap of parchment folded in half. It was not actually addressed to her, nor was the name of the sender included anywhere in its contents, but she would have known who it was from even if she hadn't recognized the hurried, elegant script. She wondered if his scent -- spicy and expensive and elusive even when he was standing right in front of her -- could really be clinging to the parchment, or if their newfound intimacy was finally wreaking havoc on her imagination.

_They're here. Come to the library._

That was all it said, and its abruptness was so off-putting, so presumptuous, that if the journals had not been so desperately important, she wouldn't have given him the pleasure of responding to his summons. She was willing to swallow a little pride, however, if it meant freedom from the emotional bedlam that had recently become her life.

Even Hermione, who possibly spent more time in the library than Madam Pince, had seldom seen the cavernous room so deserted, or at such an early hour. She could not hear or see any signs of life, but Malfoy's angry impatience crashed through the bookcases and washed over her with such intensity that it was almost tangible. It hardly seemed like a good sign that the arrival of their supposed salvation had aroused such negative emotions in him, and it worried her. She wasted no time in following the trail of his frustration to the secluded table he seemed to prefer.

As soon as she reached the alcove, the reason for Malfoy's displeasure became obvious, and she bit back a groan of dismay. Two stormy eyes and the top of a head of uncharacteristically ruffled white-blond hair were all that was visible of Malfoy over the countless, towering mountains of leather-bound journals that were heaped upon every available inch of the table in front of him. Several more stacks littered the floor around him. There must have been hundreds of them.

"It seems that we can add 'the most extensive, unorganized, long-winded, deadly-boring collection of personal writings in the known universe' to our list of Mrs. Delilah James-Malfoy's accomplishments," Malfoy said scathingly from behind his bulwark of dusty volumes. Hermione made her way slowly around the table to the chair beside him, unceremoniously dumping two more piles of books to the floor in order to sit down.

"Are _all_ of these her journals?" she asked in a hopeless whisper.

"No, Granger, only this stack," Malfoy snapped sarcastically, running an agitated hand through his hair, which explained its atypical state of disarray. "I just had my mum send all the rest for a bit of light reading." She glared at him, but it was only a half-hearted glare. He was more frustrated than angry with her, she knew, and she could hardly blame him.

"This will take _ages,_" she lamented.

"You have no idea," he replied, sounding rather like the whiny eleven-year-old he had once been. "Not only are the journals undated and in no discernable order, but from what I've read so far, all her work and theories and experiments are mixed in randomly with personal entries. She'll be rambling on for an _eternity _about her troubles with the girl in the flat below her, and then all of the sudden she's talking about the theory behind the use of insect pheromones in medical potion making. We're going to have to read every bloody page of every bloody journal to have even _half_ a chance of finding a cure that _might_ be in there."

Malfoy threw the volume he was holding across the room in disgust. It hit a particularly wobbly tower of yet more journals, which promptly cascaded to the floor around their feet. Neither did anything about this, nor said another word for several minutes, wallowing in a mutual self-pity that hung like an oddly comforting cloud around them. Finally, Hermione shook off her dejected, forlorn state of mind, and set her face in lines of grim determination.

"Well, I suppose there's only one thing to do," she said with resolve. She picked up the journal that lay atop the stack in front of her, a slim volume bound in greenish leather. "The answer is in here somewhere. We're just going to have to keep looking until we find it." She didn't have to look at Malfoy to know that he was unimpressed by her words.

"You said it yourself, Granger. It's going to take _ages_. Don't you have homework to do, idiotic friends to keep in line, elves to protect, worlds to save?" She said nothing, deciding a dignified silence was the best course of action. Irked by her lack of response, Malfoy leaned back in his chair and pouted.

"Well, you waste all the time you want," he sneered. She kept her eyes on the journal even when she heard him push his chair away from the desk and get up to leave. "Let me know when you find it. See you in a year." He was just about to turn the corner and disappear into the rows of shelves when she spoke.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she suggested in a rather sing-song tone that she knew was childish but which felt oddly satisfying. Malfoy paused, and she felt his conflict as he tried to decide whether or not to take the bait.

"Why not?" he asked through gritted teeth. Hermione turned the page of the journal she was skimming with a nonchalant air that she knew wouldn't fool him for a moment.

"Well, if you'll remember, the man Delilah James was linked to was never made privy to her method, and was rather upset by it. I did a little research, and found an interview in which he admitted that the blocking of the effects was one-sided. Whenever she wanted, Delilah could tap into his feelings. He had to live out the rest of his life knowing that his dreams and emotions and fears were completely exposed to a person he hated. Now, if that sounds like your cup of tea, by all means, go ahead and leave me to do all the work and reap all the benefits. Otherwise, you can get your sorry, lazy ass back over here and help me."

Having said her peace, Hermione waited in the silence, skimming the pages of spiky, haphazard handwriting and gloating inwardly as Malfoy's shock and infuriation swirled dangerously in the air around her. Finally, he stalked back over to his chair, swearing creatively, first in English and then in several other languages she didn't understand, although she knew enough French to blush slightly at one particularly imaginative string of expletives.

"I hope you're happy," he snapped and he snatched up a thick black journal with worn edges and opened it with more force than was strictly necessary. Hermione smiled slightly, but she was already beginning to lose herself in the search, and did not answer.

It wasn't until the room had fallen silent, and Malfoy was deeply absorbed in his own work, that she realized he hadn't once mentioned the potentially humiliating events of the day before. She wondered if he had ignored the topic on purpose, or if he had been too distracted by their current predicament to remember. Oddly enough, she suspected it was former.

She studied him for a moment, trying to discern an possible motivation he might have for showing her such a kindness, when he suddenly stirred in his seat as though he felt her eyes on him. She cast her gaze down quickly, and therefore missed the look of puzzlement Malfoy sent her as a wave of gratitude washed over him, as cool and soothing as the breeze in spring.

A/N: Ta-da! It wasn't worth the wait, I know, but I'm already working on the next chapter, so it should be out soon. In the meantime, review! Oh, BTW, if you've read HBP already, we're just pretending that certain things in that book didn't happen for the purposes of this story. If you _have_ read it, I have a question for you: How do you think the events of HBP will effect the world of Draco/Hermione fan fiction? Just curious. Let me hear your thoughts!


	14. Beautiful Enemies

Disclaimer: I can think of a lot of things I'd like to own. Not least among them is the Harry Potter universe. Actually, if I owned that, I could probably _buy_ all the other stuff I want. Hmm, now that's a plan . . .

A/N: First of all, I would like to apologize for the following piece of crappy writing (don't get mad at me, Lorett, it really _is_ crappy):

"_She cast her gaze down quickly, and therefore missed the look of puzzlement Malfoy sent her as a wave of gratitude washed over him, as cool and soothing as the breeze in spring."_

This confused several people, for the simple fact that it wasn't clear, and I'm sorry. The gratitude was Hermione's because she was grateful to him for not bringing up that whole suicide thing, and who can blame her? It washed over him for obvious reasons, he was puzzled for equally obvious reasons, so on and so forth, forever and ever, amen. Sorry for the confusion.

Here's the next chapter. I'm debating about whether it's too romancy for this point in the story, but I don't think it is. Let me know, because I can always throw in a little Draco-the-pure-blooded-prat scene and slow this train down. Onto the chapter!

Chapter 13: Beautiful Enemies

In the familiar silence of the deserted library, they worked.

Despite his initial reluctance, Draco was soon as lost in the journals as Hermione. The first one he'd picked up, though ultimately unhelpful in his search, contained an extraordinary number of rather brilliant Healing potions and charms. Draco quietly prided himself on being well-versed in Healing magic (a necessary skill to acquire when one's closest relatives and circle of friends had the unfortunate propensity to get themselves into skirmishes with Aurors, Order members, and each other), and he was therefore aware of exactly how beneficial and ingenious her research really was. In some instances, her creations were now obsolete or redundant, the medical wizarding world having found ways to achieve the same result by different means, but many of the things he came across could change the face of mediwizardry as they knew it.

Pulled out of his reverie by the tingling shock waves of awed enthusiasm pulsing across the table from Hermione, he glanced up at her with curiosity. She was feverishly scribbling down notes on whatever Healing magic she had just come across, her excitement palpable even without the aid of their odd link. He seemed to remember that he had once overheard her chatting with Madam Pomfrey about the education and training required to become a Healer, and remembered the ease with which she had healed his aching head the morning before. It was little wonder that she was poring over the journals with such fervor; to a future Healer, Delilah James' research would be worth its weight in powdered horn of unicorn.

So engrossed was she in what she was doing that she didn't seem to feel his eyes on her, which she had often been able to do even before they'd taken the blasted potion that started this whole bloody mess. Draco took the opportunity to study his long-time adversary, and, perversely, the person who knew more about him than anyone else in the world.

Hermione Granger looked much the way one would expected a brainy, serious sort of girl to look. Her hair was wild and hopelessly unkempt, and a very common and unremarkable brown. She now wore it most often in a messy knot of untamable curls at the back of her head. Beneath that distinctive explosion of hair, her features were even and regular, but certainly not the sort of pretty that turned many heads at Hogwarts. Her skin was pale from too many hours cooped up with homework and dusty books, and her eyes were an unexceptional shade of golden brown. Though it was hard to tell beneath her voluminous and perfectly up-to-dress-code school uniform, she seemed to have a slight, petite build, and was perhaps an inch short of being exactly average in height.

In other words, therefore, she was almost painfully ordinary in every way. Who would have guessed, he wondered idly, that beneath her utterly common exterior lay so much complexity, so much depth? Far worse than discovering this unsettling information was the fact that knowing it seemed to have transformed her common features in his eyes into something greater than they were, something . . .

_Beautiful._

He immediately balked against the idea, which had seemed to drift to him on a whisper of air, a product not of his mind but of someone else's entirely. She was _not _beautiful, not even really pretty. This wasn't an opinion born of malice or anger; it was the truth.

Despite this knowledge, Draco could not force the word from his mind. He studied her harder, watched her brush a curl from her face and then continue writing with her brow furrowed in concentration, and the word grew larger in his head. _Beautiful_. Not beauty of face, certainly, but the word seemed to apply, in a deeper and more meaningful way than his life and experiences had given him the capacity to appreciate.

Suddenly he shook his head and blinked, absolutely appalled with his train of thought. What the hell was he saying? Hermione Granger -- self-righteous, stubborn, insufferable, pain-in-the-ass Mudblood -- beautiful? Not hardly. Not even _close_.

He was tired. That had to be it. He hadn't slept well at all last night, his dreams having been plagued by demons of both the actual and psychological varieties, and he had awakened more exhausted than he had been upon falling asleep. That was the only explanation. Surely he wouldn't be thinking such traitorous and alarming thoughts otherwise.

"What's the matter?" He blinked, startled out of his thoughts. Hermione was looking at him with mild puzzlement, and her concern wafted over the table, gentle and annoyingly sincere.

"What do you mean?" he asked, faking ignorance before he remembered that she could see through him as easily as glass. She frowned reprovingly.

"You're upset," she told him, as if he didn't know. "Unnerved. What's the matter?"

"It's nothing," he replied more gruffly than was strictly necessary. She felt a flash of irritation, but didn't let it show on her face. She continued to look expectant, and nauseatingly concerned.

"Really?" she asked cynically.

"Really," he confirmed. He found he didn't have enough energy to keep the hostility in his voice. "I'm just tired. I didn't sleep well." She smiled at him, a real sort of smile that she had never before deigned to bestow upon him.

"I know," she said quietly. Her smile disappeared, and her eyes grew troubled. "Dark dreams."

"Dark dreams," he echoed. They continued to look at one another for a moment, and something passed between them that Draco wasn't entirely sure he understood. He dropped his eyes back to the journal in his hand and went back to his search. He was too lost in thought to realize that she didn't do the same.

Hermione allowed Draco to go back to work without comment, but that didn't mean she bought his excuse. Being tired did not cause people sitting quietly in a deserted room to suddenly be surprised and unsettled. However, whatever had disturbed him had obviously been something he didn't want her to know about, and she was firmly clinging to any façade of privacy that remained between them. She wouldn't press the matter.

Now that her attention was drawn away from the journals, however, she hesitated to go back to them. As fascinating as they were -- and they were quite fascinating -- her curiosity was currently less concerned with what amazing medical achievement she would uncover next than with a certain Slytherin with a blank face and a troubled mind.

Funny, but she realized she had never really _looked_ at Malfoy before. She had seen his hateful, angry eyes and his trademark smirk, had even born witness to looks of shock and pain and unhappiness which she doubted he had shown to very many others,if any at all. She had seen these things, but that was all she had seen, all she had ever allowed herself to see, she supposed.

As well as she knew him now, she would have been at a loss to describe him if someone had asked her to. How odd it was to know a person's soul and yet be unable to picture his face. She decided to rectify that incongruity now, before she realized how utterly ridiculous it was to want so badly to be able to call more of his appearance to mind that his distinctive hair and baleful, haunting eyes.

Malfoy was leaning forward, one forearm on the desk and the journal in his other hand. He sat in a beam of pale sunlight that had found its way into their secluded corner. His silvery, baby-fine hair, which was now long enough to brush the collar of his robes, hung in his eyes and caught the light, shimmering like strands of stardust. Long, white-gold eyelashes brushed his pale cheeks when he blinked, momentarily robbing his face of all color until his quicksilver eyes were visible again. His pale, aristocratic features were too sharp, too angular to be handsome, but there was something in the line of his cheekbones, the shape of his mouth, that was almost angelic. He had the slim, light build of a Seeker, and Hermione knew him to be only a few inches taller than herself. He moved with even more grace on the ground than he did in the air.

How pretty he was, Hermione thought with detachment. How terribly lovely, and how very, very sad it made her to know how little that beauty reflected the torment and ugliness he had inside. He was so angry, so blinded by his past and his prejudice, so troubled and lonely.

Oh yes, she knew he was lonely. It was deeply buried beneath all the other emotions that swirled around him, but once she had begun to get used to sifting through all the mixed up things he was feeling, she had felt it very clearly. It was piercing and terribly familiar. She had known much loneliness in her life, much more than her share, and she suspected that, in that respect at least, she had found in Malfoy a kindred soul.

Seeing the depth to which he had been scarred by his troubled past, knowing without a doubt the sincerity of his blind and ridiculous hate, should have, in her opinion, made him seem less angelic, but it didn't. If anything, when contrasted with his inner darkness, his beauty seemed more luminous, more exquisite. In the pale light of the autumn morning, he possessed all the cold, radiant beauty of a January dawn.

He frowned at something he read, and then scowled as he tossed the book aside in frustration, and the spell was broken. His beauty was still there, but it was harsh and jagged-edged, making her think now of a tarnished, broken angel. She frowned, inexplicably saddened by the image. Malfoy's steely eyes were on hers in an instant.

"Now what's wrong with _you_?" Malfoy asked.

"Nothing," she said, all but daring him to push the issue. She didn't think he was dense enough to really think she'd believed his ridiculous excuse earlier, and she fully intended to call him on it if he tried to question hers.

Mercifully, he simply quirked a golden eyebrow and sent a wave of cynicism across the table to her. He picked up the next journal and went back to his search without comment, and, breathing a sigh of relief, she did the same.

Two beautiful enemies sat in a secluded corner, surrounded by books and unsettling, unwanted thoughts. In the familiar silence of the deserted library, they worked.

A/N: So this author's note isn't about the story, it's about the review responses below. Most of them have to do with people's responses to my HBP query. If you're interested in my take on the subject, you might read through them. I was going to post one general paragraph with my opinion, but I realized it was mostly included in all my responses (three pages of responses, good grief!), so I didn't bother. If you have any questions for me that weren't answered, just ask me in a review.


	15. Boys Will Be Boys

Disclaimer: I think this is the last one of these I'll be doing. Who really reads them, anyway? Suffice it to say, that I do not, nor have I ever, nor _will _I ever own Harry Potter or any of the characters, situations, places, etc. that belong in that magical world created by the oh-so-great-and-wonderful J.K. Rowling.

YAY FOR 300 REVIEWS! I've gotta say, when I started this fic, I was shooting to have more than 50. By the _end_. You guys have exceeded my expectations in so many ways, not the least of which being how much I look forward to reading your funny, insightful, and oh-so-helpful comments. I can't say thank you enough. I love you guys!

A/N: So, I got a rather mixed response to the last chapter. People liked it, people didn't, people thought it was going to fast, people thought it was just right. I've decided that I really like that chapter. I think it was rather lovely, myself, containing some of my prettiest writing, so I'm not going to worry about it.

As for this chapter, you will notice that it's slightly longer than most of mine usually are. That's because it just up and ran away with me! It practically wrote itself, like that memory way back when about the dead Muggle-born witch. I think it's cute, funny, and furthers my on-going quest to remain true to the characters and to the reality of the books. I honestly think it's one of the better chapters, and I'm proud of it. Pay extra attention, if you will, to Hermione's last line. I cracked up when I wrote it. Enjoy, my children! Onto the chapter!

Chapter 14: Boys Will Be Boys

The hours passed quickly and, unfortunately, fruitlessly. Hermione imagined that lunch had come and gone hours before, but she was far too engrossed in the journals to yield to such petty urges as hunger. Surprisingly, despite a few grouchy tirades in which the comfort level of his chair and the sanity of Delilah James were both called into serious question, Malfoy had proved to be as tireless in the search as Hermione herself. The afternoon had been -- dare she say it -- almost pleasant, being spent in the company of the writings of a genius and someone who almost seemed to appreciate them as much as she did.

She should have known, she realized later, that their reluctant, unvoiced truce and the relative peace that had followed it were too good to be last. She also should have known that it would be Ronald Weasley who would bring it to a resounding and unpleasant halt.

She had not heard the approaching footsteps, but Malfoy had. His sudden awareness that they were not alone caused her to glance up at him. Simultaneously, she saw his eyes harden and grow dark, felt annoyance and intense dislike flash through him like floodwater, and heard Harry and Ron's not-so-quiet whispers growing progressively nearer. She pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers and sighed deeply. Oh, this was going to be so very, very _not_ pretty.

Harry and Ron rounded the corner of the shelves not more than five seconds later, and immediately stopped in their tracks. Hermione's gaze flitted nervously between green, blue, and silver eyes, all narrowed and hostile.

"Malfoy," Ron said through clenched teeth. It was remarkable how much the name sounded like an insult. Hermione sent an apprehensive look at Malfoy, whose face had twisted itself into a smug and arrogant sneer that wasn't half as alarming as the enmity that she could feel bubbling beneath its surface.

"Well, if it isn't Potty and the Weasel," he replied in his trademark drawl, which Hermione was surprised to realize had been absent from their conversation all day. "You do realize you're in the library, don't you? Are you lost, or were the two of you looking for a little . . ." his smirk turned suggestive, " . . . _privacy_?"

Hermione winced and shook her head. Merlin, this was going to be even worse than she'd thought. For a moment, neither of her friends seemed to comprehend the comment, and Hermione could feel Malfoy taking a deep, spiteful pleasure in their somewhat comical expressions of bewilderment. As the implications of his taunt sank in, however, Ron's face flushed a furious shade of magenta, and Harry's eyes took on a dangerous glitter that both she and, apparently, Malfoy realized he could fully back up.

"Why you slimy little . . ." Ron spluttered, and most likely would have launched himself bodily at Malfoy's throat if Hermione hadn't stood up quickly and placed herself between the three boys. The last thing she needed right now was to referee a brawl between Harry, Ron, and Malfoy, all of whom were considerably larger and stronger than herself.

"What did you need, Ron?" Hermione asked, hoping her tone was clear. Ron stopped struggling against the hand Harry was using to hold him back, but did not stop sending death glares over Hermione's shoulder at Malfoy, who Hermione knew was practically bursting with amusement. Oh, was she going to tell _him_ off later, but first she had to deal with the more immediate problem of her two best friends, to whom she did not need to be linked to tell that they were seething with fury and protectiveness.

Ron was still fuming over Malfoy's insulting insinuation, and appeared unable or unwilling to answer her question. Instead, Harry looked at her, his face stern and taut with barely-checked anger.

"You've been gone all day, Hermione. We didn't know where you were, and we were worried when you missed dinner." Hermione felt two identical flashes of surprise, and was vaguely disconcerted that she was unable to tell which was hers and which was Malfoy's. Could it really be that late? She glanced at the window and saw that it was indeed quite dark, and that the night sky was already alight with countless stars.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she said, unaware that she was wringing her hands fretfully until she noticed the amusement Malfoy was directing at her (she had begun to realize that she always knew when one of his emotions was meant for her, though she neither knew nor wanted to know why that was). She stopped the unconscious gesture and glared at him over her shoulder before looking back at Harry and Ron. "I didn't mean to worry you. We've been looking for that cure I told you about and we just lost track of ti --"

"Don't let them fool you, Granger," Malfoy interrupted, bringing Harry and Ron's angry eyes back to him, apparently oblivious to Hermione's irritation that he had derailed her attempt to distract them. "They probably didn't even notice you were gone until they needed someone to correct their homework."

Damn, that had hurt. Immediately after he'd said it, Hermione could tell that he regretted doing so, but that didn't really make it hurt any less. She had read somewhere once that insults only cause pain because we secretly believe them to be true, and she wondered now if she had been too flippant in dismissing that notion.

"What the hell do you know about anything, Malfoy?" Ron sneered, finally recovering his voice. "You'll keep your bloody mouth shut, or I'll --"

"Or you'll what?" Malfoy interrupted, all mockery gone from his voice and his eyes as cold and hard as shards of jagged ice. "You'll shout at me a bit and then run off to lick your wounds? You'll do something characteristically stupid and Potter will swoop in to save your ass at the last minute, the way he always has to?" He stood up and leaned across the table, and Hermione watched helplessly as he and Ron came almost nose to nose, Malfoy's fury coursing through Hermione's veins like fiery venom. Ron looked as if he were about to let loose, whether with words or hexes or fists, she wasn't sure, but Harry stepped up and pulled his friend back, glaring at Malfoy with flashing emerald eyes.

"Shut it, Malfoy!" Harry warned in a dangerously soft tone. Malfoy's anger flared to even greater heights, and his simple sneer turned into a snarl. All three boys were discreetly moving their hands toward the wands protruding from their pockets.

"Saving the world one Muggle-loving, pitiful, destitute wizard at a time, eh, Potter? Can't go a day without being the hero, can you? That's a complex, you know. Rather unhealthy." Malfoy taunted in a snide voice. Harry had a grip on the back of Ron's robes, which was probably all that was keeping the red-head from strangling Malfoy with his bare hands, but Hermione thought he looked sorely tempted to let go after that remark. Then his anger seemed to fade and a sickeningly sweet smile, a mockery of friendliness, crossed his face. Oh, this was _so_ not good.

"Heard from your father lately, Malfoy?" he asked in what sounded remarkably like sincere curiosity but which had a malice behind it that was only detectable in the glitter of his eyes. "How's Azkaban treating him?" Hermione felt the flash of pain and hatred that the mention of his father aroused in Malfoy, and was just about to feel sorry for him when he snarled inarticulately and whipped his wand out, leveling it at Harry's face. Both Ron and Harry had their wands out a second later, and the three stood there for a few moments, the tension crackling like lightning in the darkening room.

"Don't do this. It's not worth it," Hermione pleaded softly. Neither of her friends seemed to hear her, or, if they did, didn't acknowledge her. Only Malfoy offered any reaction to her presence; his eyes flicked over to her uncertainly, and she felt the twinge of guilt that she inspired in him. Unfortunately, Harry and Ron did not, and Ron took advantage of Malfoy's distraction to disarm him with a quick spell before launching himself at the other boy with what sounded almost comically like an Indian war cry.

Malfoy let out a surprised yelp as Ron's fist connected firmly with his jaw and they both went sprawling back into a pile of the journals that Hermione had already sifted through. Harry was soon in the mix as well, and there was quite a lot of punching and yelling and shoving about. The precariously balanced towers of journals were crashing down all around the boys, stacks toppling to the floor and cascading off the table. For a few hysterical moments, Hermione was far more concerned about the well being of the old and sometimes fragile texts than she was the brawling boys scrabbling around in them.

Finally Hermione gathered her wits about her and blasted the three of them apart with a well-placed spell. Draco flew backward into a shelf, causing yet more books to tumble onto his disheveled head, Ron crashed painfully into the now-cleared table, promptly falling to the floor amongst the journals, and Harry, predictably, landed on his feet a meter a way and stumbled but did not go down.

"That's quite enough!" Hermione yelled, fury suddenly overtaking her. The ridiculousness of it all; three almost-grown _wizards_ having a common fist-fight in that most sacred of all places, the library. She glowered menacingly at the three of them. Harry appeared to be developing a lovely shiner on his left eye, Ron's lip was swollen and bleeding, and Malfoy was not only sporting a rapidly darkening bruise on his jaw (that pale skin, she supposed) but was bleeding copiously from an obviously broken nose.

"First of all, I am _very_ disappointed in you two," she scowled at Harry and Ron, who had the sense to look contrite. "Fifteen points each from Gryffindor for behaving like a pair of spoiled, reckless brats." Malfoy snickered to her right, and she rounded on him, his amusement quickly dissipating to be replaced by a small surprised fear that didn't show on his face but which tingled in the air around her like electricity.

"And _you_," she said angrily. "Fifteen points from Slytherin for being a malicious, arrogant ass." He gaped at her soundlessly for a moment, shocked.

"You can't take points from me!" he protested, drawing himself up and glaring at her over his still-bleeding nose. "I'm the Head Boy."

"Oh, bully for you, then! I'm the Head _Girl_, and I can take points from anyone I damn well please!" she shouted back. She turned her glare on the room in general. "You all behaved like silly first-years, and I won't have it! Until all this is over, the three of you will keep your hands and words to yourselves, is that clear?" They nodded, although she felt Malfoy's resentful defiance prick at her like invisible nettles. "Now, I'm going to fix you up, but if this happens again, you can all bloody well suffer through it."

She healed their cuts and bruises quickly, and took a few extra seconds to make sure Malfoy's nose was returned to its normal and, really, rather lovely shape. She quickly magicked the books back onto the table and began to gather her things.

"Ron, Harry, I want to talk to you in the common room." They sent malevolent and somewhat triumphant looks at Malfoy, whose hostility still swam in murky clouds around Hermione. "But first, I need to talk to Malfoy." Their faces fell, and Hermione could almost see in her mind's eye the gloating expression on Malfoy's face. They left, and she turned to face the remaining occupant.

"I'm sorry about that," she said. "I was hoping we wouldn't have to have that little confrontation."

"But it was so _pleasant_," Malfoy said with mock incredulity. "I can't imagine why you'd want to avoid it."

"I'll see you here tomorrow night, after dinner, unless you have plans," she suggested. He looked at her with an expression she couldn't quite read, and she sensed him trying to puzzle her out and finally giving up.

"No, that's fine. Tomorrow, then." Hermione nodded and turned to leave, but paused before disappearing into the labyrinth of shelving.

"Oh, and Malfoy?" He looked up from gathering his belongings. "If you _ever_ insult me or my friends again, I'll break your nose _myself_." She couldn't contain the smug sense of triumph she felt as she walked into the darkness, Malfoy's shock floating after her on the drifting air.

A/N: So, did you like it? _I_ liked it. It makes me smile. Tell me what you think!


	16. The Passing of November

A/N: I'm not completely satisfied with this chapter, for some reason. I think it's because I started writing it, decided I didn't like the scene, started another, and had trouble with that one too. It was a case of not really knowing what should happen next (I mean, I know where the story as a whole is going, but I needed to get to that point first.) I hope it's not too bad. I'll get the next one out as soon as I can.

Chapter 15: The Passing of November

For Draco and Hermione, the last three weeks of November seemed to drag on, as weeks in November are apt to do. The threat of end-of-term exams loomed ever nearer. Their Head duties grew more demanding with the approach of the holidays and the decorations and festivities that went with them. A Gryffindor vs. Slytherin Quidditch match scheduled for the last weekend of term resulted in longer and more frequent practices. In short, Draco and Hermione, who perhaps out of all the students at Hogwarts were most in need of free time, had nothing that even remotely resembled it.

What little time they could scrape together was spent in the library, usually late at night, poring over the journals for a cure, though none was forthcoming. None of the journals they had looked through had even been from the correct time in Delilah James' life, and they could find no mention of Dr. Hopper, Edward Flannigan, or the events connected with her research into the _Iunctus Mens. _Malfoy had begun to voice the opinion that they were finding nothing because there was nothing to find, and Hermione secretly agreed with him, though she would never admit it. Those discussions usually ended with him accusing her of being an idiotic optimist and her responding that he was a whiny pessimist, though without the rancor that would have once characterized such insults.

Finally, the sun set on November and rose on a bright December dawn, bringing with it a renewed sense of purpose for Hermione. It was a Saturday, meaning no classes and no rush on homework, and since Gryffindor had booked the Quidditch pitch for the entire day, the Slytherin team would not be in need of Malfoy's services as captain. Therefore, he and Hermione had agreed to spend as much of their rare day of freedom as they could searching the journals.

Aglow with her newfound and inexplicable determination, Hermione marched into the library at the crack of dawn, ready to tackle an as-yet-untouched stack of journals that had been piled in a corner of the alcove she and Malfoy had been using as their base of operations. She stopped short when she realized that the table was already occupied.

She had assumed that the library was empty because she had never seen anyone but Malfoy there at that hour, and on a Saturday to boot, and she had not felt his presence when she had come in. He was there, though, one arm flung out over the table and his head resting on it. He was fast asleep, and each deep breath he exhaled made the lock of platinum hair that fell across his face flutter gently.

She wondered, as she rounded the table to see what he had presumably been working on when he fell asleep, why he had been sitting up all night in the library instead of in his private dormitory. He went to great lengths to avoid being in any situation in which he would be vulnerable or defenseless, and allowing himself to grow so tired that he couldn't drag himself off to bed before falling asleep wasn't like him.

She almost smiled when she realized what she had been thinking. How odd it was to realize that she was in a position to know what was and wasn't like Draco Malfoy. She supposed they had just spent too much time together in the past three weeks to have not picked up on certain habits, characteristics, and personal information.

For instance, she knew that he was allergic to dust mites, which she had discovered one morning when, exhausted from a strenuous Quidditch practice the day before, he had forgotten to cast his anti-allergy charm and had been overcome by a sneezing fit when she dropped a dusty book on the table. She knew that, when he was very tired, he muttered to himself in French, not English, which made her wonder if he _thought_ in French as well. She knew that he had a particular fondness for an obscure wizard hard candy that tasted like amaretto and coffee and made one's skin tingle pleasantly as they were sucked, and that he always had some in his pocket.

These were trivial things, perhaps, but they didn't seem trivial to Hermione. They seemed shockingly intimate, the sort of things only friends, lovers, and relatives knew about someone, and she wondered idly what intimate, trivial details he knew about her.

She had reached his side of the table and quickly took note of the fact that he had been working on his semester project for their Advanced Study of Ancient Runes class. Each student (there were only five, and besides Malfoy and herself, all were in Ravenclaw) had been assigned a different text to translate. Hermione had been having a devil of a time with hers, and she knew Malfoy wasn't _quite_ as strong a student in that class as she was. No wonder he had been up all night.

She went to wake him, but was suddenly hesitant to do so. She had almost forgotten what it was like to be in the same room with Draco Malfoy without a painful awareness both of his feelings an of her own. It was something of a novelty. She was standing there watching him sleep, feeling slightly guilty though she knew she was doing nothing wrong, when he woke on his own, almost as if he had sensed her studying him. He blinked sleepily, and her emotional awareness of his presence returned, though it seemed hazy and undefined. She supposed that was because he was still groggy with sleep.

She smiled at him before she realized she was doing it.

"Good morning," she said quietly. Those sleep-blurred, unfocused eyes turned in her direction, though he still didn't seem fully awake. Was he always so disoriented when he woke up? How unlike him that was, she thought. He was always so in control of himself.

That thought was soon forgotten, however, because what he did next was not only unlike him, it was utterly bizarre. A feeling of recognition, of sleepy happiness, drifted over her like a warm summer breeze, and then . . . Malfoy smiled.

It was not a sneer, or a smug mockery of a smile, or even his trademark smirk. This was an actual, honest-to-God smile, and it transformed his face.

"Morning, Granger." As soon as her name left his lips, she saw the sleep recede, saw the Draco Malfoy she had come to know in the last month come back to himself. The smile was gone as though it had never been, and she felt its loss like a physical pain.

Malfoy looked around, clearly unsure why he was waking up in the library.

"What happened?" he asked. She settled herself in the chair beside him, feeling saddened by his wariness, his automatic assumption that he had to be on the defensive at all times.

"Nothing happened. You must have fallen asleep working on your Runes translation. I just got here." Malfoy nodded absentmindedly and looked down at a piece of parchment that was covered in runes, most of them scratched out, and lined with hurried, terse notes he had been taking as he puzzled over a particularly difficult series of symbols. He frowned, his frustration chasing away whatever warmth had lingered in Hermione from the momentary happiness he had experienced so briefly when he woke.

"Damn ancient idiots. Couldn't just write it all out nice and simple, could they? Had to make everything difficult for me. I've just about had it with that bloody class. No NEWT is worth all this." He continued with his derisive monologue on the horror that was Ancient Runes, but Hermione ignored him, having heard similar rants from him before. Most often these tirades were about the journals, but once, while they were patrolling the halls together, he had spent a good ten minutes bitterly and one-sidedly complaining about that day's Transfiguration lesson, which had been especially difficult for him. Hermione had noticed, though, that for all his complaining, he continued to search the journals with fervor to match her own, and the next time they had been in Transfiguration, he had turned his Labrador into a writing desk so ornately and beautifully carved that McGonagall had pronounced it "an impressive achievement," which was the highest praise Hermione had ever heard the teacher bestow on anyone but herself.

Finally, Malfoy ended his rant, his frustration apparently spent. He sent a sullen glare at her when she looked up at him from the journal she had begun to skim, but she took no offense from it. She'd been glared at often enough in the past three weeks to inoculate her against even his most withering stares.

"Would you like me to take a look?" she asked, motioning at the neat, halfway-filled parchment onto which he was obviously copying his final translation. He made a move as if to push the parchment over to her, but sense of surprise and then a anger that seemed more reflexive than justified overtook him, and he scowled at her and yanked the parchment back.

"Save your advice for people who ask for it, Granger," he snapped irritably. She sighed and shook her head. She was by now well-used to his occasional outbursts of bad temper. She thought they might be Malfoy's way of reminding himself of exactly who they were to each other when they were not in the curiously detached little world that their small, secluded corner of the library had become.

And what were they, she pondered as she watched Malfoy pack away his Runes homework and get ready to settle in for another day of searching? Not friends, certainly; she doubted that they could ever be friends, for in every way that mattered they were either exactly the same or completely different, which resulted in far too volatile a relationship to ever fall into such a mundane category. She doubted, too, that they could really be considered enemies anymore, either, or at least not the kind of enemies they had been before this all started.

She thought of the kind of enemies sometimes portrayed in Muggle movies who, though firmly on opposite sides of a looming or already-raging battle, can meet in mutual respect and admiration and speak to one another as equals. A worthy adversary, they would call one another. Is that what they were to each other now, she wondered? She thought of the way he had smiled at he before he had fully woken up, and decided that description didn't quite fit either. Perhaps they had reached a place that did not yet have a name.

So absorbed was she in her thoughts that at first she didn't notice Malfoy's change in mood. He had picked up a journal with the grim, hopeless determination with which he always tackled the journals. Not more than a few pages into it, however, he had paused, furrowed his brow, read a line again, and yet again. A sense of disbelief, of seeing things grew on him slowly. It was not until shocked realization dawned on him that Hermione, acutely aware of the powerful emotion, was drawn away from her inward musings.

"What is it?" she asked. He didn't look up at her, keeping his eyes locked on page as though it would disappear if he looked away. She got up and looked over his shoulder to see what had inspired such a reaction. He pointed at a line of text halfway down the page.

"Does that say what I think it says?" he asked, no small amount of disbelief in his voice. Hermione leaned in further, careful not to touch Malfoy as she did so. They had learned their lesson about physical contact, and had scrupulously avoided touching one another for fear of bringing on yet another of the unnerving memory incident. She read the words he had indicated and froze. She read them again, this time out loud, hoping that hearing the words might make her believe them.

"_It happened today. Edward and I have finally been able to duplicate the correct conditions to induce the Effect. I hope this will provide us with all the information we have been seeking, though I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of using Edward and myself as test subjects. I intend to start immediate research into methods of remedying this unfortunate situation as soon as Dr. Hopper has collected all the necessary data." _

Malfoy looked up at her as though hearing the words only just now allowed them to sink in. She looked back, unable to contain the small, triumphant smile that brimmed on her face.

"We found it."

A/N: Finally! I bet you thought they'd never find it, huh? I'm sorry if this chapter seemed a little uneventful, or if they seemed to get along too well. Keep in mind, though, that a lot of time has passed between this chapter and the one before it. Three weeks can change people. And I'm expected another Draco memory pretty soon, either in the next chapter or the one after it, so get excited! I haven't quite decided what I want his to be yet, but I have to throw one in because I already have Hermione's all planned out, and it wouldn't be fair to do a Hermione memory and not a Draco memory.


	17. The Children of the Damned

A/N: Hey, everyone! Sorry it was a day later than expected. I was intending to write this all out Saturday night, but I was suddenly IM'd by an old summer fling of mine I hadn't heard from in years and we ended up talking far into the night. Sigh If parts of this chapter seem rather sappy, please blame it on him and his sweet, silly words that neither of us believed for one second.

This chapter is slightly longer than mine usually are. What ended up happening was that I started out writing from Draco's POV and then realized that I didn't have anything more to say from his side of the story at that point. I therefore switched over to Hermione's POV, but it evolved into a memory chapter, and I couldn't cut that short. So what you basically have is a normal memory chapter with a little half-chapter at the beginning. Sorry if that doesn't sit well with you, but them's the breaks I guess. I think that, really, the Draco POV part should go with the previous chapter. When I do some editing and reposting when I'm done with the story, I'll probably do that. It will flow better that way.

Chapter 16: The Children of the Damned

A few weeks after the _Partis Sensus_ had turned his world on its ear, Draco had experienced something that, until then, he could not remember experiencing before; he woke up from a dream, not terrified or in pain, but with a sense of comfort and peace. A good dream. It was a concept as foreign and alien to him as cell phones and orthodontics.

He had quickly surmised that the dream must have been a product of Hermione's subconscious, for he highly doubted that all of his accumulated happy memories could provide his own with enough material to work with in the "good dream" department. Normally, the dream-sharing phenomenon, which he had gleefully termed "REM rape" (Hermione was not amused, which only made him say it more), pissed him off, but it was such a relief to wake up without his heart racing in terror that he almost wished it would happen again. It had, several days later, and then, to his great surprise, he'd had a good dream of his own.

In this dream world, he had been flying, and he had been wonderfully, joyfully free. He did not want to give Hermione credit for this newfound happiness, but he suspected that it was her gentle influence on his sleeping mind that had resulted in this change of dream scenery. Initially, that had pissed him off as well, but that too had soon faded. Now he was simply grateful for the brief respites from nightmares and reality (which was sometimes worst of the two) that his new dreams could give him.

As he'd slept in the library, he had been dreaming pleasantly again, but this had not been a flying dream, as all of his good dreams had been thus far. This time, the happiness was mellow, comforting. He had been at peace, or he supposed he had; he had never known peace in his waking life, and therefore had nothing to compare it to.

More disturbing than this unfamiliar emotion was the fact that it did not recede immediately when he woke. His sleep-muddled brain, still basking in the serenity of his dream world, had not seen blood-lines or principles or a less-than-friendly seven-year history. Instead, it has registered a quiet voice, a gentle smile, a familiar face, and, damn it all, he had smiled back at her. He knew the action had surprised her; hell, it had surprised _him_. He blamed it on the dream, on his disorientation, on anything but the fact that he had been glad to see her. That made it easier, but it didn't make it okay.

Several minutes after the incident had occurred, he was still attempting to justify it to himself, and therefore almost skipped right over perhaps the most important words he'd ever read in his life. He was just about to turn the page when a distant alarm sounded in his head, breaking through the muffling fog of his self-justification. He read the lines again, didn't believe them, and read them once more. He might have continued to stare at them all day if he hadn't felt Hermione soft hair brush the side of his face as she leaned over him.

He snapped himself out of his trance, but was still just shocked enough to forget to flinch away from the touch of her hair, which felt like raw silk against his skin. He pointed to the lines in question, hoping that she would confirm that they were more than products of his wishful imagination.

"Does that say what I think it says?" Her sweet, clean scent wafted over him on the same air that carried her wary hopefulness as she leaned forward over his shoulder to read the words he half-doubted were actually on the page. He didn't bother to make any effort to avoid contact with her; she was always careful enough for both of them. Too careful, in his opinion, about _everything_. Never a movement made or a word spoken without serious thought. It had to be a boring and strenuous existence.

He felt the shocked disbelief jolt through her, saw it freeze the features of her face in incomprehension. In a trembling voice, she said the words aloud, and it wasn't until she was finished that he really believed. He turned to look at her, and was rewarded (no, damn it, _not_ rewarded, for what did he care?) with a small, joyful smile of triumph.

"We found it," she whispered. Her happiness was like a cool, gentle rain, and he fought hard against the smile his traitorous mind wanted to give her in return. He was trying too hard to keep himself from being entranced by the childlike pleasure she was exuding to protest when she snatched the long-searched-for journal from his hands. Her eyes ran hungrily over the page, desperate to see if they had really found the answer they had so long been seeking.

He watched her for a moment, trying as always to figure out what it was about her that intrigued and infuriated him so. The last three weeks had rather puzzling for him. The more time he spent in Hermione's presence, the less loathsome said presence became. He knew instinctively that, for the sake of his sanity, it should be the other way around. It had reached the unthinkable point where her company was not only less-than-repulsive; it was familiar, even comfortable.

He _knew_ her, damn it! He knew the way she laughed, and the exact color of her guileless, doe-like eyes. He could recognize the sound of her footsteps or the scent of her shampoo. He could recite from memory the classes she took and the tests she'd had last week. He knew where she was going for her Christmas holidays. He knew her deepest and most painful secrets. He knew that his own were safe in her steadfast, unwavering hands.

He didn't _want_ to know those things; quite the contrary! He wanted to wash them from his memory the way he washed away the dust and sweat of a Quidditch match. He wanted to be rid of all the accumulated words and gestures and subtle emotions he had witnessed that had conspired against him to make him hate her less, or perhaps not hate her at all.

He hardly knew what to think of her anymore. She was a Mudblood, a hated enemy of nearly seven years, a self-righteous know-it-all, a poster-child of all that he had been taught to hate and stamp out. She was also clever, and uncompromising, and stronger and more complex than anyone had the right to be. She was so . . . unexpected. He knew every emotion that gripped her, every fear and desire she had, but she still surprised him.

Oh, how he wished he hadn't thought that, because no sooner had he done so than she went and proved him right. Without warning, she gasped slightly and then, seized by excitement, reached out and grabbed his arm as if to get his attention. He watched as her eyes went unfocused and then cursed as he was sucked into the depths of his own mind, wondering bitterly which of a thousand ugly memories his subconscious would choose to revisit next.

She hadn't meant to touch him. She _hadn't_. She'd just been excited, that was all. To have finally found a glimmer of hope in a situation that grew more hopeless everyday . . . It was a heady feeling, and it had wreaked havoc on her common sense. She had found another mention of a possible cure, and in her excitement had done the first thing that came into her mind -- she had reached out for the person she wanted to share it with.

She realized her mistake instantly, cursed herself for her lack of self-control, but it had been too late by then. It had been nearly a month since she'd been an unwilling hostage to Malfoy's memory, and she had almost forgotten the sense of claustrophobia that seized her as her ability to breathe was whisked away and the world spun rapidly out of focus.

She opened her eyes . . . And was seized for a moment by the terrifying thought that she was blind. She could see nothing in the impenetrable darkness, but she gradually became aware of an urgent, whispered voice, the sensation of two hands shaking her roughly, desperately, and the overwhelming desire to hex the moron with a death-wish who _dared_ to wake her in the middle of the night. Yep, she was definitely in Malfoy's head. Her train of thought also seemed to suggest that she was not blind, but in a night darkened bedroom.

She sat up abruptly and shoved away the hands that had been trying so desperately to wake her. Irritably, she groped on the nightstand beside her for something -- what was it? -- and tried to clear the sleep from her mind, foreboding tracing icy fingers on her heart. Malfoy was not worried; if anything, he was pissed off, but Hermione couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had given her unknown companion reason to wake her was going to be very bad indeed.

Her hand suddenly latched onto the thing she had apparently been searching for -- Malfoy's wand. She heard herself mutter "_Lumos_" in Malfoy's familiar voice, deep and melodic as it was now. In the sudden brightness, beyond the strands of white-blond, sleep-mussed hair that obscured her eyes, the pale, frightened face of Vincent Crabbe was watching her with trepidation. White-hot anger flashed through her veins.

"Damn it, Crabbe, what the hell are you doing?" she snapped, pushing hair out of her eyes and sitting up further. "I've told you _never_ to disturb me when I'm sleeping! Was even _that_ too difficult for you?"

"I'm _sorry_, Draco," Crabbe whimpered, causing Malfoy's lip to curl with disdain and Hermione to wish she had eyes to roll in disgust. "But, but --" Crabbe stammered, apparently too upset over angering Draco to remember why he'd risked rousing that anger in the first place.

"Get it out, you idiot!" Hermione heard herself snap. "I'm already awake now."

"It's your father, Draco," Crabbe whispered urgently, holding his breath as though preparing to bear the brunt of whatever reaction he expected this news to induce. Hermione felt Malfoy's body go very, very still, his anger instantly dissipated.

"What happened?" Malfoy's voice was tense.

"We don't know," Crabbe replied, and his voice trembled slightly, though it didn't seem to be out of fear of Draco anymore. "There was an ambush at the Ministry tonight. They're saying Potter was there, and Dumbledore, and . . ." Crabbe gulped audibly, "the Dark Lord."

Even as Draco's heart fluttered painfully in her chest, Hermione felt a thrill of remembered fear. This was Draco's memory of the night when she, Harry, Ron, Neville, Ginny, and Luna Lovegood had gone to the Department of Mysteries. The night of Sirius's death. The night Malfoy's father had been captured. Funny that, before now, she'd never given a thought to what was going on back at Hogwarts that night. She was apparently going to find out.

Hermione threw aside the heavy, warm blankets under which she was buried and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The damp, cold air of the Slytherin dungeons hit her apparently bare chest (what an odd sensation _that_ was), but she barely registered the physical discomfort. The cold dread that had settled in her chest far outweighed whatever chill might hang in the dark air of the dormitories.

Now that she was outside the heavy, muffling hangings of Malfoy's four-poster, she could hear other whispered, tense conversations, the rustling of clothes being pulled on hastily, and the sounds of the other fifth year boys stumbling about in the dark. She quickly began dressing as she questioned Crabbe in a terse, tightly-controlled voice.

"Who?"

"We don't know. We weren't even supposed to know about the raid at all, but Pansy overheard her father talking. She didn't know it was going to be tonight."

"How do we know it was?" She turned to look at Crabbe, whose face looked drawn and frightened and far less cruel than it usually did. The part of her that was still herself and not Draco registered that he must be worried about his father, and with good reason, she knew. He had been among those Death Eaters captured in the battle.

"Two seventh years who were up studying for their last NEWT saw Dumbledore returning with the wounded. They say students were with them. Potter for sure, and probably several others."

"Is that all?"

"No. Zabini went down to the infirmary to see if he could hear anything. Dumbledore and a few Order members were discussing what to do with the Death Eaters they'd captured. He didn't hear any names."

A heavy sadness settled with finality in Hermione's chest. Having finished dressing, she swung a cloak around her shoulders, pocketed Malfoy's wand, and began to make her way out of fifth-year-boys' dormitories and down into the Slytherin common room.

Considering what time it was, the common room was extraordinarily full, and eerily silent. Dozens upon dozens of haunted faces turned in Hermione's direction as she entered. The news of the attack on the Ministry had apparently spread fast. Hermione was under no illusions that the assembled group was waiting to hear news of their fellow students. They took care of their own, and no one else. The worry in their eyes was for their parents; these were the children of Death Eaters, of Dark wizards, of the pureblooded fanatics who would sooner see Hermione dead in a gutter than in Hogwarts.

It was curious then, that it was her heart, not Draco's, that went out to them. They couldn't help it if their parents were Death Eaters any more than she could help it that hers were Muggles, and no matter what they had done or said to her in the past, their fear and worry seemed genuine. Sitting huddled together, wearing pajamas and robes and looking young and frightened, they didn't look like cold-hearted Slytherins to her; they looked like children who feared for their parents, who had no way of knowing if they had just become orphans of their own war. It was a sobering sight.

Draco, however, had no pity for them. Hermione walked among them without giving the slightest sign of comfort or sympathy. They asked for none. Perhaps that was just the way Slytherins were, and it saddened her to think how lonely an existence that must be.

She found that both she and Malfoy wanted nothing more in that moment than to get out of the smothering silence, away from the wounded, bottomless gazes of his housemates. A tangible weight, like a suffocating blanket of grief, had descended on the Slytherin dungeons that night. Here, in the darkest depths of the Hogwarts castle, was the worst kind of hell imaginable, where children suffered that most terrible of torments: loving those who did not deserve it.

She had never before considered what the families of Death Eaters had gone through that night. Sitting at home or at Hogwarts, unsure if their loved ones were dead, wounded, captured, or worse, not even sure if they had been involved. No way to get information without risking exposure, no one to turn to for answers or comfort. She looked at the taut, guarded faces of the students she passed, willing herself to remember their expressions forever. If she ever began to doubt in the justness of her cause, she intended to fall back upon the sight of children with wary eyes, fighting to hide the weakness that was their love for their parents.

She found herself stopping in front of a dark, regal-looking boy with exotic eyes, who was talking in terse undertones with Theodore Nott, who looked haggard and pale, and Pansy Parkinson, who, lacking her usual coat of make-up and clutching her robe together with trembling hands, seemed far less detestable than usual.

"Blaise," she said in Malfoy's deep, rather strained voice. The dark boy turned to look at her, his eyes ebony black and fathomless in the dark room. "Have you heard anything more?"

"Nothing," the boy replied evenly. His face and voice betrayed no emotion. If his parents were among those who might be involved, if he was worried about them at all, he did not show it. Apparently deciding that nothing more was to be gained by talking to the unmovable Blaise Zabini, Hermione turned to look at Pansy instead. She stared at her with shell-shocked, pleading eyes, as if hoping that Draco could somehow make what was undoubtedly a living nightmare for her go away. Hermione had never felt so sorry for her.

"What did you hear your father say, Pansy?" she asked. She had never heard Malfoy's voice sound so gentle before.

"Something about tricking Potter into going to the Ministry. He was talking about how pleased the Dark Lord would be when the Death Eaters could present Potter and his Mudblood-loving friends to him after they were caught in the ambush." Chills went through Hermione as she listened to Pansy speak so flippantly about the capture and inevitable deaths of Hermione herself and all the people she cared about. Draco was unmoved by that particular aspect of Pansy's revelation, but instead it struck a hollow fear in his already-anxious heart. Hermione knew he was thinking that if the chance or honor and glory, the chance to be the one to capture Harry Potter, was involved, then his father was almost sure to be as well.

"Did he say who would be going?" Pansy mutely shook her head. The weight on Draco's heart didn't lessen. Into Hermione's mind's eye, came the image of a pale, beautiful face. Not his father's, surprisingly; a woman, with long, platinum hair and pale blue eyes, her face shattered with grief. Hermione realized all at once that it was not for his father than Draco feared; his worry was solely for his mother, who he suspected, apparently, would not mentally or emotionally survive the loss of her husband. If it was possible for Hermione's heart to break when her it was far in the future and in a body other than the one she currently inhabited, than it did so in that instant.

With nothing more to be said, nothing more to be done, Hermione fell into a chair with more grace than she possessed in her own form. Tormented with images of Malfoy's broken, grieving mother, her heart strung tight with terror, she sat there in the tortuous silence, waiting for a distant dawn to bring news of death and sorrow to her and the rest of the children of the damned.

Hermione blinked and found herself back in the library of Hogwarts. Light poured in the windows. The air was warm, filled with the comforting scent of old books and a faint hint of the breakfast being served at that moment in the Great Hall. Funny, then, that Hermione still felt chilled, as though a part of her remained in the cold, dank dungeon of the Slytherin common room.

Malfoy was watching her with blank, guarded eyes. He was expectant, wary, ready to defend himself against whatever probing questions or angry tirade he was anticipating her to throw at him. She took a very small amount of pleasure in surprising him by doing neither.

"I hope your mother's okay," she said quietly. He blinked at her, obviously expecting anything but that. It took him a few minutes to respond, but when he did it was with a relief and gratefulness in his stormy eyes that he would never have given voice, although he didn't really have to.

"She is now," he replied in a soft voice. He didn't offer any further explanation, but that was okay. She didn't need one.

She sent him a very tentative smile, and held the journal she was still holding out to him, pointing to the passage she had wanted him to read. He studied her for a long minute, and then, with a quirk of his lips that was the closest thing to a smile he had ever given her intentionally, he took it.

A/N: Review! I want to know what you think of the chapter, of course, but even more than that I'd like to know if you'd be interested in reading a little one-shot that grabbed hold and held me at gunpoint until I wrote it out. It's D/Hr, of course, and basically involves a Draco from the future looking back on the day that changed his life. It's entitled "Nothing Important Happened Today" (that's a quote, and brownie points to anyone who can tell me who said it, or wrote it, as the case may be). There isn't a huge amount of plot (mostly Draco musing about his past and the paths he chose for himself), and it's rather cliché, but I think it's quite prettily written. What do you think? Would you be interested? Should I post it, or should I leave it gathering cyber-dust on my computer?

Also, I have discovered that in my haste to get chappies out to all of you, I have been letting a few grammatical and spelling errors slide. I also seem to be terrible at gauging what kind of response I will get to different ideas, and often find myself pondering two or more possible routes the story could take, unable to decide between them and longing desperately for a sounding board. I have used all of those deductive reasoning skills my high school used to say I had in abundance and have decided that I may be in need of a beta. Would anyone be interested in the job? If not, do you know anyone who might be? It wouldn't have to be a permanent arrangement (just for "Linked") and I'm not asking for miracles, here; I'd just like someone to read through my chappies to correct any glaring errors who won't be annoyed if I send them e-mails begging for an objective opinion on my crazy thought processes. My e-mail is in my profile. Drop me a line if you want the job!


	18. Something Has Changed

A/N: Sorry it's been so long between updates, everyone! I had the WORST case of writer's block EVER! Finally got it finished though, but it wasn't easy, let me tell you! So you'd better appreciate it, damn it! (just kidding, my love)

Let us all give a big round of applause to Lorett, my new beta! She nursed me through my battle with the inspiration-stealing demons, and then kept me from posting a less-than-exemplary chapter in order to get it out sooner! You all owe her BIG TIME for that, because the chapter rather sucked before she helped me out.

Anyway, on to the chapter!

Chapter 17: Something Has Changed

Draco wanted to be reading the journal in which his salvation might be found, but two things were stopping him. The first was that Hermione refused to relinquish the slim, white, leather-bound volume. The second was that he could not stop staring at her.

He'd been trying for perhaps the last ten minutes to wrench his gaze away, and found the task utterly impossible. He suspected that his mind was searching desperately for any reason to doubt the sincerity of the kindness she had just shown him.

It shouldn't have been possible for someone to be so compassionate. Forced to relive a night that, according to the highly-accurate Hogwarts rumor mill, had caused her grievous injury and had nearly cost her the loss of her friends and her life, she'd responded by . . . worrying about his mother. _His_ mother! A woman she'd never met, and who, though she might not know it, considered people like Hermione of no more importance or worth than the dirt beneath her Louis Vuitton-clad feet (the women of the wizarding rich did not allow their prejudice to get in the way of high fashion).

Of all the things she could have said, Draco could not think of a single one that would have been more troublesome or upsetting to him. It was not that he didn't appreciate that she cared; that, in fact, was the problem. He _did_ appreciate it. He soaked up her quiet kindness like a man dying of thirst, hungered after it like he was on the brink of starvation, craved more of it already though it had only been minutes since he'd last been blessed with it. How pathetic he was, he sneered at himself, and Malfoys were _not_ pathetic, with the possible and glaring exception of his father.

He had not given the matter more than thirty seconds of thought before he'd realized exactly why her compassion had moved him so: no one had ever really cared about him before. His mother -- his poor, lovely, oh-so-fragile mother -- had only so much love to give, and what love she did not reserve for herself belonged solely to Lucius. As for his father . . . Well, Draco doubted that his father had _ever _had the capacity to love, but if he had, it had been eradicated by the Dark Lord long before Draco could remember.

This lack of caring from the two people who should have loved him above all else in the world made it even harder for Draco to accept that Hermione, who had every reason to loathe him, could give a damn whether he lived or lay dying in a thousand pieces. It was most perplexing for him, and Draco was unused to being perplexed by anything.

He didn't know what to make of kindness that was offered simply for its own sake, and not with cunning, manipulation, or ulterior motives behind it. It was confusing and foreign and it meant too much to him. He didn't want this, didn't want her kindness or her compassion, didn't want to feel anything other than disgust when he looked at her . . . Now, damn it, if he could only look _away_ from her, he might be able to convince himself of those things.

A slight intensifying of her level of excitement caused Draco to raise an eyebrow at her. Apparently sensing his curiosity, Hermione looked up at him, the smile that had so recently been on her lips still shining in her eyes.

"Find something?" he asked. He was surprised to find that his voice sounded normal, even amused. Perhaps he should have become a Death Eater after all; he was apparently a superb actor.

"Nothing much, just a reference to a potion that looked rather promising. It didn't work, but she talks about doing a little more experimentation with it before giving up entirely." She blinked and then laughed suddenly, giving him an apologetic smile.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Draco, I've been sitting here hogging it, haven't I? I didn't mean to, I just get so excited sometimes . . ." She trailed off, her eyes on his face. "What's the matter?" He paused, making sure his voice didn't reveal the shock he was feeling when he spoke.

"You called me Draco," he replied very quietly. She furrowed her brows, her eyes and the air clouding with confusion.

"What?"

"You've never called me that before," he explained. Realization and embarrassment dawned on her, and she blushed rather prettily, dropping her gaze.

"Haven't I?" she asked, and though he might have imagined it, it seemed to him that her voice trembled ever so slightly. "I didn't mean to. It just slipped out."

"It's alright," he said quickly, cutting off further explanation. "I don't mind." Her eyes finally met his again, and an emotion he didn't quite recognize began to swirl around her, just beyond his ability to feel it with any clarity.

"Okay," she said carefully, an appraising, rather puzzled look on her face. "You can call me Hermione, if you like."

"Okay," he echoed quietly. He continued to stare at her until she looked away with another delicate blush. Absentmindedly, she twisted a rogue curl around one finger.

"It's not really fair for only one of us to read this," she said suddenly, looking everywhere but at him. "I suppose we could sit together and read it at the same time." It seemed more like a question than a suggestion, but he wasn't going to give her the easy out and make the decision for her.

Whatever pensiveness had characterized his thoughts a few moments ago had vanished, replaced by something lighthearted, even playful (he would not give the credit for this to hearing his name on her lips, he would NOT). He sat calmly, not responding to her words and watching her squirm uncomfortably. The silence stretched between them, growing more awkward by the minute.

She was distinctly nervous now, her discomfiture obvious even without the aid of their link It would have amused him once. Thank God some things never changed. He put his trademark smirk firmly in place and waited, feeling bemused and rather relieved that he wasn't the only one who was ruffled by the strange interactions that seemed to characterize their relationship nowadays. Finally, with a twinge of irritation and an aggravated huff, she pushed herself out of her chair and rounded the table to sit beside him.

She put the journal down on the table between them with more force than was strictly necessary and scooted her chair closer to his own with another small sound of annoyance. He wasn't aware when his smirk became a full-fledged smile, but neither was she, so that was alright. With their heads close together, they began to read.

The morning passed quickly, and when lunch rolled around, since neither of them had eaten breakfast, Hermione allowed herself to be persuaded to go in search of food. Though reluctant to leave at first, half-an-hour of Draco's whining finally drove her out. She left, but only after making him swear on all his hair products that he would report anything he learned her absence as soon as she returned.

Following that brief interruption, they returned to their work with renewed purpose. When it became clear that Delilah James's research on the subject might not be confined to this particular journal, Hermione continued to read on while Draco searched for references to the _Iunctus Mens_ Effect in the other journals.

An hour after splitting up the task, Hermione had finished the white volume without any luck. Though Delilah James considered herself to be on the right track, Hermione couldn't see that she'd made much progress at all in the several hundred pages of text that were bound in the journal. She could only hope that the answer lay somewhere else.

Draco had already found three more volumes that mentioned Delilah's research into the cure, and since no dates were included to help guide them as to the chronology of the texts, they were going to have to read through them all. Hermione didn't mind the work. It gave her something to do besides steal glances at Draco out of the corner of her eye.

Draco. She cringed inwardly as she though of her slip earlier that day. Several weeks before, she had begun to refer to him in her own mind by his given name. She understood that, to him, the use of his first name was a sign of intimacy that he shared with a very small few, so she had never even attempted to call him that to his face, but he had been Draco to her practically since that Sunday afternoon they had spent in each other's company.

His given name came so easily and naturally to her mind that she hadn't even noticed she'd said it until he pointed it out to her. She had a brief moment to be mortified by her slip-up before he had surprised the embarrassment right out of her by not only NOT biting her head off, but telling her very calmly and sincerely that he didn't mind if she called him by that strangely intimate name.

The look in his eyes when he had offered this privilege to her had sent a very strange jolt of _something_ through her veins. She had no more idea what it was than he had, but it had made her extremely uneasy. And, damn the git, he had delighted in her discomfort! She could feel his bemusement in the air even as she'd sat there, but the lack of any real malevolence behind it had allowed her to let it pass unacknowledged.

She looked at him now, wondering what that strange interaction had meant, and why it had happened. She suspected that it had something to do with the memory she'd witnessed that morning; he'd been troubling over something ever since. Oddly enough, his preoccupation appeared to accompanied by foreign, positive emotions she had never sensed from him before. In fact, with the exception of a little good-natured teasing that held no malice whatsoever, he hadn't said a single mean thing to her since. It was disturbing, to say the very least.

Unless she was mistaken (and it was quite possible that she was, as she'd been wrong about him before), Draco was either letting his bad-boy act slip dangerously away from him, or that morning's memory had changed something between them. She wasn't sure what it was yet, but it couldn't be a bad thing.

Eventually, the afternoon drifted away, and, because she was so damned easy to manipulate and because he rather enjoyed seeing her get all annoyed, Draco wheedled and whined until Hermione agreed to go find some dinner for them. She left with a scowl, but her eyes twinkled at him the way they sometimes twinkled at Potty and the Weasel, and he didn't bother to try denying that he rather liked it when she looked at him that way.

He had promised to continue to search, so, obviously, he immediately tossed the journal he was holding aside and leaned back in his chair, intending to do no such thing. He slid his legs, which felt stiff and cramped, onto the table, and in doing so, knocked several dusty journals to the floor. With a long-suffering sigh, he swung his legs down and bent to retrieve them.

He distinctly remembered seeing three volumes fall from the table, but for a moment, he could only find two. Finally, he spotted the rogue journal several feet away, lying open beneath the chair Hermione had recently vacated.

He picked it up and was about to place it back on the table when an underlined phrase on the open page caught his eye: "Something has changed." Bringing the journal closer to him, he studied the text further.

The paragraph in question was written rather haphazardly, and it appeared to him that when she had written it, Delilah James had pressed unnecessarily hard, nearly puncturing the parchment in her excitement (or distress). He furrowed his brow as he began to read.

_I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't care about him. I don't even LIKE him. But if that's true, why am I worried about him when he's away from me? Why do I feel calmer, happier, safer when I'm with him? Why is it that I sit here writing about him when I should be looking for a cure? I used to hate him so much, and it was so very easy to feel that way. Something is different now, though. Something has changed_.

Draco blinked stupidly at the page. _Surely_ she wasn't talking about that partner of hers (what the devil was his name?). They had _hated_ one another; everything he and Hermione had run across had told them so. Delilah had pages and pages of journal entries in which she ranted endlessly about . . . Edward, that was it! . . . and how utterly insufferable he was. A smug, half-blooded ass, he believed she had called him, who thought he could do and say no wrong. Draco had commented that he sounded a lot like Potter; Hermione had commented that he sounded a lot like _Draco_, minus the half-blood part.

Whoever he most resembled, though, one thing was certainly clear: there was no love lost between Edward Flannigan and Delilah James. So what on earth was she rambling on about? The silly girl didn't sound as though she hated him at all; she sounded as though she were trying very hard to convince herself that she wasn't falling for him, if she hadn't already. Could that be it, he wondered? Had being linked been enough to overcome what seemed to be a pure and well-founded hatred between two people so obviously different from and ill-suited to one another?

Draco's blood seemed to freeze in his veins. Oh, no, no, _no_! He couldn't even begin to process how very wrong that was, on so many, many levels. He began a frantic series of rationalizations, snatching onto anything that might make this revelation any less terrifying.

Whatever had transpired between Delilah James and her partner, it had absolutely no bearing on what was happening now, between Hermione and himself. Besides, the girl had ended up married to a Malfoy, hadn't she, not some arrogant, half-blooded prat. However confused the link might have made her, she had righted it in the end. Draco clung to that thought, fearing that it was the only thing that was saving him from full-out hysteria. And Malfoys, he thought somewhat desperately, did not _do_ hysteria.

Forcing down his rising panic, Draco had just succeeded in bringing his emotions back under control when the doors to the library banged open distantly. Hermione's presence flowed tranquilly through the bookshelves to pool pleasantly in the alcove that he had tried very hard not to think of as "theirs," a task at which he had failed miserably. She arrived several minutes after her emotions had washed over him. Her arms were laden with food.

Clearing a space on the table, she chatted happily about meeting Professor Flitwick in the halls on the way down to the kitchens and learning that she had received 112 on their Charms end-of-term exam. It wasn't until she had finished recalling the hours she had spent fretting over the accuracy of her response to a certain short-answer question that she cast a concerned look at him with her wide, dark eyes.

"Are you okay, Draco?" she asked. He nodded after a split-second's hesitation. In that second, he had suddenly decided not to share the journal with her, at least not yet. He felt oddly drawn to it, considering how vehemently he had tried to disregard its contents not five minutes before, and felt compelled to read further, if for no other reason than to confirm his own suspicions.

Hermione did not see him drop the slim black volume into his bag.

Neither did Draco see the small, puzzled frown that she sent him after he'd done so.

They ate in companionable silence, but, once again, something had changed.


	19. Late Nights and Nightmares

**Special Author's Note: You will all undoubtedly notice that I have removed all of the review responses from _Linked_. This is because I have heard from more than one reliable reviewer that has begun to delete stories in which the author personally responds to the reviews. Though I think this rule is absolute CRAP (please see my profile to hear the extended version of this rant), I do not want my story deleted, so I am complying. I will be happy to respond to reviews through e-mail, so if you write a review and would like a response, give me your e-mail address and I'll write back to you. Yes, I'm bummed. Sorry I'm being whiny. You now have permission to continue on to the non-whiny actual chapter:)**

A/N: YAY for 500 reviews! I really am speechless. Thank you all so much for your constant support and helpful comments. I don't know what I would do without you! Special thanks to saddlebum for being the 500th reviewer!

Thanks goes to Lorett for being the world's best beta and all-around sounding board!

As for the chapter, I really don't have much to say today. Just sit back and enjoy, especially the last scene, because I'm rather fond of it. On to the chapter!

**Chapter 18: Late Nights and Nightmares**

Draco sat on his bed and stared across the room at his desk, scowling ferociously at it. Well, not at _it_, per se, but at the journal that lay on top of it. He had managed to resist the urge to read it again all night, but now, with the next three weeks' homework lying completed on his trunk and all other avenues of distraction exhausted, it beckoned to him with all the pull of a siren's song (and Draco, having once born witness to such a song during a family holiday to the Aegean Sea, did not make such a comparison lightly.)

He knew it must be quite late; he hadn't left the library until well after curfew, which was the only rule he had so far discovered that Hermione Granger didn't hold in very high regard. After returning to his dormitory, he'd spent several hours doing everything in his power to avoid reading the journal, hoping that sleep would overtake him before he had given into his desire to do so. All that carefully orchestrated avoidance had led him to this moment, (one of the most pathetic of his life, he mused with detachment) in which he was sitting on a bed and sending death glares at an inanimate object that, unfortunately, could no more cower in fear before his gaze than get up and dance the foxtrot with his inkwell.

He did not _want_ to read the journal, but he also didn't want to _not _want to. Why should he fear to read it if he really believed it had no bearing on his current situation? Currently, the portion of his brain that was devoted to the desperate rationalization that allowed him to lead the life he did without going stark raving mad was attempting to come up with a reasonable answer to that question, thus far without success. Draco scowled some more.

After a few minutes of this, he finally gave up, cursing colorfully about his lack of willpower, and crossed the room. Snatching the journal off the desk, he stalked back over to his bed and began to read.

It took him a few moments to find the correct passage again. Once he had, he began skimming the pages, telling himself that he was looking for mentions of the cure, and rolling his eyes at what a horrible liar his inner voice seemed to be. While he did run across more notes regarding the research, they proved as fruitless as every otherone they had happened upon thus far. Finally, he found what he had _really_ been looking for; another passage written in that almost frantic, uncharacteristically-haphazard scrawl.

_I begin to wonder if I'm as mad as Edward has always accused me of being. Today, while we worked in the lab, I looked up to find him staring at me, and I would swear on everything I have ever held dear that what he was feeling in that instant was quite the opposite of hatred. It was gone before I could blink, but it was real, I know it was. It is utterly ridiculous; I've never given him any reason to feel anything toward me but envy and hatred. It makes no sense, and what makes less sense is that I want him to feel that way. I know that soon I won't be able to hide it from him anymore, and then what will I do? Admit that I'm falling in love with a big-headed, holier-than-thou, absolutely insufferable git with the filthy blood of Muggles running in his veins? And what if he admits it back? What if I want him to? I certainly can't have that. No, I must find a cure, and it must be very, very soon . . ._

Draco stared at the page with a heavy heart, his worst suspicions confirmed. Delilah James had hated Edward Flannigan; she'd said so herself a hundred times over. She had hated him for all the reasons that Draco himself would have hated him, and did hate Hermione and everyone like her. Was their link really enough to allow Delilah to overcome such long-held, and, to Draco, still-valid beliefs? Surely not. Surely she was merely confused by the rush of new emotions, allowing her romantic female mind to be swept up in the poetic sappiness of being linked so intimately with another. Surely he, as a jaded, practical sort, free of the encumbrance of feminine romanticism, was safe from such lunacy.

Weeks worth of sleep deprivation caught up with him rather suddenly, as they tended to do, and he put the journal aside with a sigh. He had barely enough time to pull his shirt off and slide beneath the sheets of his four-poster before the shadows of sleep were upon him.

* * *

To the outside observer, it would have appeared that Hermione was proof-reading her Arithmancy essay one last time before bed, but the outside observer would be gravely mistaken. Hermione was, in fact, trying very hard to proof-read said essay, but was instead dwelling endlessly on the last thing in the world that she wanted or would have ever expected herself to dwell upon: Draco Malfoy.

He had been hiding something, she was sure of it. It hadn't been anything horrible, but something had upset him, made him edgy and guarded, and it wasn't like him to be troubled by something and not whine on and on about it. She had noticed the change as soon as she had returned with dinner, and it hadn't abated in the next few hours they'd spent in each other's company.

She wondered what could have happened in the span of fifteen minutes that he would want to hide from her. She wondered why he had gone from being almost civil to her all day to being brusque and secretive all evening She wondered why it had bothered her so that he was lying to her. And, she thought, immensely irritated with herself, as long as she was wondering things, she wondered why the hell she was sitting here in the middle of the night wondering about Draco bloody Malfoy when there was homework to be done.

With a disgusted sound, Hermione pushed the parchment away from her, giving up all pretenses of being currently in possession of the mental faculties required for such difficult tasks as reading and holding a quill. She looked morosely around her empty dormitory, finding nothing in it that might distract her from her disturbing thoughts, and grumbled to herself as she slipped on a tattered pink robe and a pair of house slippers. She grabbed a book from her book shelf and headed out the door that led to the Gryffindor common room. Perhaps she could find a little peace there.

She halted in her steps upon entering the room. It was quite late, though she didn't know the exact hour, and she had been expecting to find the common room deserted. However, curled up in one of the large, squishy armchairs by the fire was the small, red-headed form of Ginny Weasley, who appeared to be writing a very long letter in the firelight. Though she had wanted to be alone, Hermione found herself intensely happy to see the youngest Weasley, who was also Hermione's only close female friend.

As Hermione approached the fireplace, Ginny looked up from her letter, happy surprise blossoming on her freckled, pretty face.

"What on earth are you doing up, Hermione?" she asked, putting her letter aside as she sat up more fully. "It's got to be close on 2:00 now."

"Can't sleep," Hermione responded as she dropped unceremoniously into the chair opposite her friend. Well, it wasn't a lie, she thought with dry amusement. She had just conveniently left out the _reason_ she couldn't sleep. Ginny, however, was far more astute about things like this than her brother could ever hope to be. She gave Hermione a very shrewd and grown-up stare, and then one corner of her lips tipped up knowingly.

"Who is it, then?" she asked. Hermione blinked at her, honestly confused by the question.

"Who is who?"

"Who is the boy? The one who's keeping you up?" Ginny clarified. Hermione could feel the blush rise in her cheeks and could only hope that the darkness of the room and the warm glow of the firelight would cover it up.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Hermione responded primly. Ginny giggled, the way only teenage girls who are gossiping about teenage boys can giggle.

"Come on, love, out with it, then. Who knows how long you've had it bottled up, with only Harry and my oaf of a brother to confide in. Tell me all about him." Ginny pulled her legs up underneath herself in the chair, so that she was sitting cross-legged, and leaned forward expectantly. Hermione blamed it on the very late hour, or on too many weeks of very late hours, but she sighed resignedly.

"It's really not what you're thinking," she said, by way of beginning. Ginny grinned wickedly.

"Of course it isn't, dear. You're far too innocent for it to be what _I'm_ thinking."

Hermione gazed at her with wide eyes and felt the blush return.

"Ginny!" she chided her friend. Then, for no reason that she herself could ascertain, Hermione began to talk. She started from the beginning, and, leaving out only the details of Draco's memories, told the entire story. As good as it had felt to confide in Harry and Ron several weeks earlier, she found a different sort of comfort in revealing the story to Ginny, whom she could trust to not jump to angry conclusions or quick, unfounded judgments.

The redhead's gossipy, teasing attitude had immediately dissipated when the details of Hermione's story began to be revealed, and when it was over, Ginny's eyes were serious and concerned.

"You said it felt like he was hiding something. Is it bad? Should you be worried?" Hermione frowned as she considered this.

"I don't think so. It can't be anything really dangerous, something to do with You-Know-Who or anything like that. He doesn't agree with his father, you know, about following He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." She nodded, her voice growing more certain. "No, it must be something personal, something he was worried or insecure about. After all, whatever it was, it had to have happened in the ten or so minutes I was gone." She frowned. "I hope everything's okay."

When Ginny didn't answer, Hermione looked over at her. The other girl was studying her with a curious, appraising sort of stare.

"He's quite attractive, isn't he?" Ginny said suddenly. Hermione tried very hard not to let her expression change in the slightest at the rather random observation.

"Who? Draco?" She tried to keep her voice neutral, even flippant, and kept her gaze firmly on the fireplace instead of on her friend's shrewd eyes. "Yes, I suppose so. I hadn't really given it much thought. Why do you say that?" When Hermione looked back up at her, Ginny had a small, knowing smile on her face.

"No reason," she said easily. The strange, evaluating look disappeared from her eyes and she leaned forward, the gossipy enthusiasm returned. "So, what's he like?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you've spent so much time with him lately. Is he always a snarky prat?" Hermione smiled gently.

"Yes. But I rather like him anyway." Ginny grinned.

"And on that note, I really have to get to bed. Quidditch practice tomorrow morning, you know." She rose from her chair, yawning as she did so, and, picking up her unfinished letter, began to make her way toward the girls' dormitories. Hermione wished her goodnight but made no move to follow her, knowing that the thoughts that still ran rampant in her head were not going to allow for sleep any time soon.

Hermione wasn't sure how long she sat there, staring into the fire and allowing her mind to drift as it would. She hardly even noticed when the inky tendrils of sleep began to curl into the outer edges of her mind, and when her eyelids grew heavy, she was far too tired to resist the temptation to close them. Curled up in the armchair in the flickering light of the fire, she slept.

* * *

Draco did not dream in color. He did not know why.

He had never questioned this particular phenomenon until Hermione's dreams had begun to invade upon his sleeping mind. The faint memory of green grass and a sunny, cerulean sky had been the first indication he'd had that his dreams were now occasionally not his own. Though he secretly envied her the bright, vivid world in which her sleeping mind existed, he didn't find it terribly odd that his own was so radically different. He supposed that their dreams were like their lives; one was lived in color, the other in shadow, and that was simply the way things were.

Therefore, as he stood in one of Hogwarts' many corridors in the flickering, smoky light of ash-colored candles, looking at his own pale gray hands, it was not the monochromatic nature of the world around him that frightened him; it was the eerie sound of distant sobbing. The girl's sounds of -- pain? grief? terror? -- wrenched horribly at his heart, and with a heavy sense of foreboding, he began to walk toward them.

Though the girl's tormented wails echoed endlessly on the corridor's stone walls, his footsteps, curiously, did not. In fact, though he could feel his heels snapping smartly against the unyielding floor, he could barely hear any sound at all other than the distant, sobbing girl and the rapid beat of his heart. He didn't like it, didn't like the panicked feeling that accompanied the muffling of one of his senses, didn't like the surge of protectiveness that seemed to increase with every step he took closer to the weeping girl.

As he moved with disconcertingly silent steps through the halls, he noticed that the paintings on the wall seemed distorted, dark, and nightmarish, inhabited by mutilated faces and shadowy figures that he could only see clearly in his peripheral vision. He suspected that the statues were moving menacingly toward him, though when he looked at them, they were completely stationary, if not leaning threateningly in his direction. His pace quickened slightly as he hastened to get away from the surreal horrors of the corridor, but slowed again when he began to fear whatever evil awaited him when he found the crying girl more than the ghastly painted faces of the hallway's inhabitants.

The sobbing seemed to grow louder and more heart-wrenching as he neared an open classroom door, and though both his feet and heart felt leaden and unwilling, he stepped into a pool of gray light that poured from the room and, with a deep breath that he could barely hear, he stepped inside.

He found himself in the Potions dungeon, which threw him off for a moment, considering that the hallway he had just left was several floors above the room he now inhabited. It took him a moment to find the source of the sobbing, which was now all he could hear. On the far side of the room, next to the table at which they had brewed the bloody potion that had turned his world upside down, sat the huddled, shaking figure of a girl.

He began to walk toward her, keeping an eye out for whatever monstrosity was responsible for her apparently bottomless despair. Suddenly he froze in his tracks. Her head was dropped down on her drawn-up knees, her arms hugging her legs against her, so her face was not visible, but there was no mistaking that bushy hair, even if it was a steely-gray color instead of its usual brown. Though he had no longer been able to hear it beating, he knew his heart stopped in his chest.

Rushing forward, a fear as great as any he had ever known slithering horribly in his stomach, he dropped to one knee beside her. Each sob that issued from her tremor-wracked body now seemed like a torture to rival his father's most powerful Cruciatus, and he was far too panicked to remember that he shouldn't care.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" he asked, knowing he sounded terrified, because, damn it all, he was, terrified down to the very marrow of his bones. He wanted to protect her, to ease her suffering; to grind into dust whatever or whomever it was that had caused her such pain. He was too desperately worried that he didn't even try to talk himself out of such traitorous notions.

"Hermione, please, tell me what's wrong," he repeated, knowing he sounded like he was pleading and not bloody well caring a single bit. When she still didn't answer him with anything other than continued sobs, he didn't hesitate to reach out and touch her shoulder. Finally, she looked up at him, her weeping finally quieting.

He fell away from her, a new kind of terror clenching at his heart. Though the ashen, tear-streaked face was certainly Hermione's, the eyes belonged to someone entirely different, someone dead for nearly seven years, whose eyes had haunted him as surely as any ghost ever could. Improbably, _impossibly_, they stared out of Hermione's grief-stricken, monochromatic face with all the vivid, brilliant color of the finest sapphires. In the gray twilight of his dream world, they frightened him more than all the smoke-colored demons that his subconscious had ever summoned to torment him combined.

He scrambled away from the gray Hermione with her unbearably blue eyes, unable to summon the strength to stand and run, but his movements made no sound. In fact, now that the crying had ceased, there was no sound at all. Hermione reached out a silent hand to him, the murdered Muggle witch's vivid eyes pleading from her face as they had done all those years ago.

"Draco," she whispered, though the words were intolerably loud in the utter silence. "Draco, please save me." The pitiful terror in her voice stirred something inside him, and he used every once of willpower he possessed to answer her.

"From what?" He felt his lips move, felt the vibrations of sound rumble in his throat, but he heard nothing at all. She seemed to understand though, for she shifted her trembling hand to point at something over Draco's shoulder.

Turning around, ready to tear limb from limb whoever had terrified her so, he felt the bottom drop out of his world as he came face to face with . . . himself.

With a shuddering gasp, Draco started awake.

High in Gryffindor tower, so did Hermione.

A/N: Ta-da! Is the dream cool or what? I thank Lorett for encouraging the idea, and my friends Tyler (who does not dream in color) and Kelly (whose dreams have no sound) for being inspirations.


	20. Out of the Shadows of Nightmares

**A/N**: Hello again all! Sorry for the slight wait on this chapter. I've been crazy busy lately.

For those of you who read the last chapter before I reposted it, you should know that has ffnet instated a new rule in which authors are not allowed to give personal responses to reviews. Because I don't want my story to be deleted, I have gone through and removed all the review responses from previous chapters, and will not include responses in any future chapters. I want you all to know that I am furious about this, and that it is no reflection on you guys. I still want to hear everything you have to say, and I still appreciate your feedback more than you know. I'm hoping that this is only a temporary thing, and that the moderators will see reason and change this rule. Until then, I just want to say that I love all of you and still want to hear from everyone.

Quick answer to a question I've gotten repeatedly in reviews: Many people have asked why Draco and Hermione don't just go to Snape and get him to help them. The answer to this is because, although my story was tossed firmly into the realm of AU by the events of HBP, I have tried to avoid any blatantly non-HBP compatible scenes or events since the book came out. You will therefore not hear mentions of Dumbledore or Snape anymore because I simply don't feel comfortable as a writer at this point in so obviously going off into my own little world with complete disregard for canon. I wasn't willing to rewrite what I'd already written in order to make it fit with HBP, but because this story was never intended to be AU, I'd just like to avoid going directly against the Harry Potter universe as written by JKR. I don't mind ignoring it, but I don't really want to oppose it.

Anyway, on to the chapter!

**Chapter 19: Out of the Shadows of Nightmares**

For a long time, Draco simply lay there, staring into the darkness and willing his heart to stop racing. He made no move to reach for his wand or light the lamp on his bedside table, half-afraid that the light would reveal a gray bedroom and haunting, sapphire eyes.

He'd had many nightmares in his time. Sometimes he was forced to relive real-life terrors, and other times his subconscious found more original images with which to torment him. Never had one shaken him so badly, or left him with so many questions. He knew he would not be able to sleep again that night. At the moment, he felt as though he would _never _sleep again.

Throwing back his blankets, he sat on the edge of his bed, gathering the immense courage required to reach out, grab his wand, and mutter "_Lumos_." He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding when the dim glow revealed green satin sheets on his bed and multi-colored books scattered on his desk.

This was not the twilight world of his dreams. No dark, accusing eyes gazed out of the many shadows. No pitiful sobs echoed off the room's stone walls. Somehow, though, he had an overwhelming, paralyzing fear that all that was on the verge of changing, and that at any moment he could be plunged back into the shadows of his nightmares. He couldn't stay there, not for another minute. He threw on a pair of dark jeans and a black sweater, wrapped a cloak around his shoulders, and went out the door.

As good as Draco was at being the center of attention, he was even better at remaining unseen. Despite a near run-in with Filch, he was able to slip out the front door with little more trouble than he might have had if he'd walked outside in broad daylight. He was going (somewhat predictably, his inner voice snorted derisively) to the lake.

A chilly breeze blew off the water, blowing his hair off of his face. It was just cold enough to be uncomfortable, but he welcomed it, even relished it, because it gave him something tangible to focus on besides the dream. He was _going _to think about it, he _was_, but he wanted a few moments of peace first, a few moments in which there were no blue eyes to haunt him, no nightmares to plague him, and no silly, compassionate Mudblood girls to confuse him.

For a few blessed minutes, he got it.

* * *

After her abrupt return to consciousness, Hermione sat in her armchair, blinking into the fire, her heart racing painfully in her chest. Despite the warmth of the dwindling flames, she felt chilled.

That dream . . . it was almost frightening her just to _think_ about it. Though it hadn't been the first of Draco's dreams that she'd witnessed, she'd never brought more away from those experiences than vague feelings and the occasional random image. This time, however, she remembered every detail with vivid, terrifying clarity, like it was an especially disturbing horror movie that she had watched just before going to bed.

She had not been a participant, exactly, the way she was when inside one of Draco's memories. Harry had once described to her what it was like to be inside a Pensieve; it was the closest comparison she had, the only difference being that their link had remained intact within the dream, and she was therefore privy to his emotional reactions to the nightmare. Now that she was back in the waking world, however, his reactions concerned her less than her own did.

The dream had frightened her in more ways than one. In it, Draco had seen her as terrified, helpless, in need of protection. She hadn't liked seeing herself that way, didn't want to think that Draco might be seeing a weakness in her that she was too stubborn or proud to admit existed. The thought made her too uneasy to allow herself to remain seated, and she stood up and began to wander restlessly around the common room.

And what of Draco in all of this? What was she to make of his desire to protect her, the pain her suffering seemed to cause him? What had his subconscious mind been trying to tell him, tell them both, by making Draco himself the villain of the piece? She knew she would not be able to sleep again until those questions were answered, and perhaps not even then.

Her aimless wandering had led her to one of the many windows lining the circular room. She gazed out at the landscape unseeingly for a moment, lost in her troubled thoughts. The moon was full that night, and its light bathed the Hogwarts grounds in a veil of silver and shadow. 'It looks like a scene from a black and white movie,' Hermione thought wryly, not missing the irony despite her lack of sleep and the upsetting nature of her recent experience.

It was while she was contemplating the strange sense of humor that fate seemed to possess that she noticed the lone figure standing beside the silvered lake. A billowing black cloak, windblown hair the color of stardust, a shadowy but aristocratic profile; well, speak of the devil.

She watched Draco stare out over the lake for a few seconds before deciding that there was no time like the present for an awkward but unavoidable confrontation. They were both up anyway, weren't they? She ducked into her bedroom to pull on a pair of worn out jeans and a pair of trainers and, wrapping her cloak around herself, she slipped out of the Gryffindor common room and began to make her way downstairs.

* * *

Draco knew the instant she stepped out onto the grounds, though he heard neither the creak of the enormous front doors nor the sound of her footsteps. Her determination and the confusion and worry that simmered just beneath it, pulsed in the air around him. Though she was the last person on earth he wanted to see in that moment, he could not help but turn to look at her.

She stood on the slope of the hill that led up to the castle steps. She was looking at him, with her dark, serious eyes; eyes so unlike those that had belonged to the dead witch, and yet so like them at the same time. They had the same quiet strength, the same brave defiance, and, at the moment, the same pleading expression. They both fascinated him and tore at his already raw emotions, and as much as he wanted to turn away, he found that he wasn't capable of doing so.

He stared at her for a long time, not moving at all. She stared back, but apparently she was finding more purpose and strength in doing so than he was, because she then did was he could not; she started walking toward him.

Hermione stopped walking when she was a few feet away from him and gazed up at him with solemn features and a furrowed brow. Even if he could have thought of anything to say, he seemed to have lost all ability to move in any meaningful manner. Besides, there was no need to ask her what she was doing there. Her eyes were haunted now, and old, like he knew his own to be. She had seen it all.

"We need to talk about it," she said calmly, the wind whipping her sleep-disheveled hair away from her face at the same moment that his own was blown into his eyes. Her words seemed to break whatever spell had been holding him captive, because he found all of the sudden that he was able to tear his gaze away from hers and turn away.

"No, we don't," he replied in what he hoped was a tone that rang with authoritative finality. She didn't seem impressed.

"Oh, yes, we do." He heard her footsteps draw nearer, felt her determination and concern increase in strength, and registered the sweet scent of her shampoo all at the same time.

"_No_, we _don't_," he replied, turning his head just enough to glare down at her. She glared back, her irritation beginning to rise and overshadow the other, more disturbing feelings.

"Saying the opposite of what I say is not a valid argument," she snapped.

Just for the hell of it, he sent her a smirk and replied, "Yes, it is." She scowled and doggedly matched him step for step as he began to walk away.

"I want to know why it scared you so much when you realized it was me." Draco halted at these particular words, feeling a jolt of surprise followed by what could only be considered very undignified panic. He began to open his mouth to deny the accusation, but she frowned at him and held a hand up. "And don't you dare try to lie to me, Draco Malfoy. Not only will I be able to feel that you're lying, but I happen to know very well what I'm talking about. Tell me why you were so afraid."

He fixed his eyes on a point a few inches over Hermione's right shoulder and answered through gritted teeth.

"I thought you were in danger. I was worried about you." Though he thought this answer was more than she had any right to expect, she wasn't satisfied.

"Why?" she asked quietly. He threw his hands up in the air and turned away from her.

"I don't bloody well _know_ why! And even if I did, it's none of your damn business, is it?" He felt her grow outraged, and turned around to face her again in the hopes that if she threw a hex at him, he might at least have a _chance_ of blocking it if he didn't have his back turned. Her face was flushed and angry, and her eyes flashed at him in the moonlight.

"You have no right to talk to me like that, Malfoy. I didn't make you dream what you did any more than you chose to dream it. Quit taking your frustration out on me. We're in this together, damn it, and I won't stand for you treating me like this one more second!" She was yelling now, and it both made him angry and soothed his nerves, because _this_, at least, was something he could understand, something that was normal and comprehensible and familiar. He glared back at her, relishing the anger that surged in his veins.

"So it's back to Malfoy, is it? Well, I have news for you, _Granger_. I didn't ask to be in this together with you, and I'll treat you any way I damn well please." He felt a dangerous rage bubbling up inside him, and all of the sudden he wanted nothing more than to hurt her the way she was hurting him by making him care. "Besides, I don't take orders from Mudbloods." She froze and stared at him with wide, wounded eyes. Her pain shattered over him like splinters of jagged glass. His resolve wavered, but before he could begin to take it back the hurt was replaced by a consuming fury.

"How _dare_ you call me that, after all we've been through!" she hissed. "How can you even _think_ that anymore?"

"I _have_ to think that!" he yelled back at her, too remorseful and angry and confused to really think about what he was saying as he said it.

"Why?" This single word wasn't yelled, but rather spoken in a soft, pleading voice. He looked into her eyes, dark with sadness and betrayal, and realized that she wanted desperately to know why he still believed it, wanted even more desperately for him to stop believing it at all.

"Because if I don't think it, then I won't have any reason to hate you anymore." It was the most honest thing he had ever said, and as painful as it had been to say, it was even more painful to realize that it was true.

"And you do? Still hate me, I mean." She was still speaking in that quiet, pleading voice and he realized that he was powerless to stop himself from answering her.

"I want to," he replied. It wasn't a lie. Gods, did he want to. It would have been so much easier.

"That isn't what I asked," she pointed out. Her eyes were pleading, and there was a desperation flowing off of her that he didn't quite understand. He didn't know how to answer her without ripping out the final stone that was the only thing keeping the world as he knew it from crumbling around his ears.

"That's the only answer I can give you right now," he said, hoping against hope that she would accept that, and wouldn't continue to question him. Mercifully, she didn't, but her next topic of choice was hardly better.

"In the dream, you were the one I was afraid of. Should I be afraid of you?" There was no deception or manipulation behind the question, and the trust he could see in her eyes pained him as much as the fact that he didn't know the answer to that question any more either.

"I don't know," he replied honestly.

"Would you hurt me on purpose?" she wanted to know. He studied her unremarkable face while he tried to figure it out. He knew that his answers so far that night had been uncharacteristically honest, and he felt strangely compelled to tell her the truth about this as well, so he gave his answer very serious thought before responding.

"Not anymore," he told her quietly. She looked at him for a moment, and then nodded.

"Okay," she said with finality. "That's all I wanted to know." She stepped back from him (when had they gotten so close, he wondered?) and gave him one last searching look before turning toward the castle. He watched her go, feeling a strange lightness in his chest.

A few meters away from him, she stopped and turned back around. A nearby tree cast dappled moonlight over her rather ordinary features, she gave him a small, tentative smile, and for a moment, she was beautiful.

"Goodnight, Draco," she said softly.

"Goodnight," he replied as she turned around. She was far beyond earshot when he finished his sentence, and only the silent moon and silvered lake heard him whisper, " . . . Hermione."

**A/N**: And there you have it. Hope it was enjoyable for all. Please, PLEASE continue to review! I may not be able to answer them personally, but I still want to get them!


	21. Finding a Cure

**A/N:** HELLO MY DARLINGS! How I've MISSED you! It's been way too long. I'd like to start off by apologizing for my sudden and unexpected departure from our little world here. Real-life had to trump fanfic-life (wonderful though it may be) for a while, but now that my drama has dropped to a reasonable level, I feel like I can finally devote enough time to this story to do it justice.

A round of thanks yous: First of all, you ALL deserve a HUGE round of applause for being so patient and not harassing me about this chapter! It's been a long time coming and I know how hard it is to wait for a fic to be updated. Your patience astounds and is highly appreciated. Second, a shower of roses and kisses upon all EIGHTY-SEVEN (holy freakin' cow) of you who reviewed for the last chapter. I live off your feedback, my darlings, and you never disappoint. It is for you guys that I was really inspired to return to writing as soon as I did. Lastly, a zillion hugs and kisses to Lorett, beta extraordinaire.

So, who's excited to see what happens next? _I _certainly am! I'd forgotten what a joy and pleasure this story is for me to write. Now, I think you've waited long enough for this chappie (more than two months, can you believe it?), so I won't ramble on any longer. On to the chapter, my darlings!

**Chapter 20: Finding the Cure**

* * *

He smiled at her the next day. More than once. She hadn't asked him why, because she was afraid that if she did, he wouldn't do it anymore, and she didn't want that. She loved it when he smiled.

Why, you may ask? Well, that was quite simple. Because, when he smiled, _he wasn't perfect_. His teeth, of course, were white and straight and all that a person could ask for from teeth. It was his smile itself that cracked that mask of dignified perfection: slightly crooked, gently lopsided, utterly boyish and endearing and un-Malfoy-like. She was quite sure that if he knew that about himself, he would never smile again (not that he did it much anyway). For her own part, Hermione thought that it was perhaps the most beautiful smile she had ever seen.

He only did it when they were alone. In the halls, at meals, in classes; there he was as cold and aloof to her as he was to everyone else. When it was just the two of them, though -- in the library, at Heads meetings, during late-night patrols -- his smile came as easily to his lips as he smirk once had. When he graced her with one of those lopsided grins, she felt _more_ than pleased; she felt privileged.

She suspected that Draco didn't mention the thrills of pleasure she derived from being on the receiving end of his smiles as a sort of pay-back for her never questioning him about why he had begun smiling in the first place. She was grateful for that, for the continued stability and normalcy of the strange, isolated world in which they were the only inhabitants. It was comfortable there, and in those stolen hours in which she resided there, she was happy.

She was not blind to the irony of the fact that the only real peace she could find in this time, as the threat of Voldemort and the epic and tragic final battle loomed ever nearer, was to be found in the company of Draco Malfoy, who had shown her nothing but cruelty and contempt throughout most of their acquaintance. How odd that she should find such comfort in his closeness now, such a feeling of stability in her constant awareness of his presence.

Such was her train of thought as she made her way through the library on the last Sunday before the holiday break. Hermione had put her foot down several days previously about studying for end-of-term exams taking precedence over searching Delilah's journals, so she was not going back to meet Draco for another of their all-day "look-for-the-cure" sessions. She was, however, going back to meet Draco to study for their Ancient Runes examination together. She had finally appealed to his Slytherin thirst for excellence by any means, and had persuaded him to let her help him with his Runes if he would drill her with some of the more difficult aspects of emotion-altering potion making, which they had been studying all semester. She was a considerably stronger student in Potions than he was in Runes, so he thought he was getting the better deal and she _knew_ that she had manipulated him into accepting her help. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.

She was several minutes early for their scheduled meeting, which was a habit she had picked up over the course of the last few months. Draco was _always_ on time (it seemed to be a matter of honor to him), and she was certainly not going to allow him to best her at something she could so easily remedy. Despite his high regard for punctuality, Draco was never early, either (which had always seemed to say to Hermione "I'm not going to waste one more second of my valuable time on you than I absolutely have to"), so she was not surprised to find their customary table empty when she arrived. She sat down and began to unpack her materials.

She hadn't been sitting there for more than a few minutes when the nearby stack of unsearched journals began calling to her. She fidgeted in her seat for a moment, casting furtive glances at the journals. Despite her insistence on focusing on their studies for the week, she couldn't help but think that the answer -- and there _had_ to be an answer -- must be in one of those wonderfully few volumes, just waiting to be found.

And Draco wasn't here yet, was he? It wasn't as if she could get much done in the five minutes before his arrival anyway. She would just take a quick peek at one, just to ease her curiosity for a while. What would it hurt? And what if she actually found it? Wouldn't the look on Draco's face when he arrived and she told him that she'd discovered the cure be more than worth the scant moments of study time she would have to sacrifice to the cause?

She picked up the top-most journal, and began to read.

Draco looked impatiently at the majestic clock that hung on the wall near his door. He had twenty minutes to go before he was supposed to meet Hermione, and he absolutely refused to get there early; it would seem like he was eager to see her, and he certainly couldn't have _that_. However, he could not decide which was worse: showing up early and making her believe that he wanted to see her, or sitting here trying to convince himself that he didn't.

He stood up with an exasperated sound (directed at the portion of his brain which was supposed to maintain his image as the cool, immovable, unemotional Draco Malfoy and which had begun to fail miserably of late). He strode aimlessly around his room for a moment, desperately seeking anything that might distract him from his restless and unsettled state of mind (he was _not_ anxious to see her, he was _not_). Unfortunately, his eyes strayed (as they often did these days) to the seemingly innocuous drawer in his nightstand where he kept the journal that he had smuggled out of the library.

He groaned inwardly. He had almost succeeded in getting through two entire days without giving a single thought to the disturbing events that were unfolding on the pages of that slim volume. Delilah James had devoted this particular journal to chronicling her love affair with Edward Flannigan, the man to whom she was linked and who had once been her greatest enemy and rival. Draco had read with no small amount of dismay how love had taken root in Delilah's heart despite her most valiant efforts to resist it. Their link had not allowed Delilah to keep her new feelings secret for long, but Edward had not only welcomed the revelation; he had responded in kind. Late-night rendezvous, stolen kisses, moments of joy and sorrow and despair: all were documented carefully on the yellowed pages of the journal now tucked away in Draco's nightstand drawer.

Draco didn't want to know all this about Delilah James; he really didn't want to know all that about _anyone_, unless it would be useful as a blackmail tool. Somehow, though, for reasons he absolutely refused to investigate, he had an almost overwhelming compulsion to read the journal. He wanted to know every detail, every tiny nuance that had somehow added up to a love great enough to overcome a lifetime of hatred and prejudice. He suspected that, if he gave it any thought, he would discover that he already knew the reason he wanted to know all this so badly, which was precisely why he gave it as little thought as possible.

He had last put the journal aside several days before when he had been particularly shaken by a passage. The words still echoed in his head, in a silky, feminine voice that he was relatively certain he had never heard before in his life.

_I have spent but one night here in Paris, and already I miss Edward's presence like I miss the warmth of sunlight in winter. When did he become my sanctuary? When did his touch become as necessary as water and air? When did I stop feeling whole unless he's with me? Perhaps I never felt whole. Perhaps I simply did not know that I was walking around, half of myself. I cannot decide if he got under my skin when I wasn't looking or if he has always been there and I was simply too blind to see it._

Now, as he stared at the drawer in which the journal was hidden, he wondered if it really happened that way, if people could really turn around one day and realize they couldn't live without one another. He certainly hoped not. If anything was going to completely change him and everything he knew, he wanted to see it coming. He wanted to be able to recognize it before it was too late to get the hell out of Dodge.

_And that_, his subconscious whispered traitorously, _is exactly why you keep reading that journal_. He shook his head at the thought, declaring it ludicrous even as he began walking over to the nightstand.

_DRACO!_

He halted in his tracks. That had been Hermione's voice, and he had heard it as clearly as he might have if she'd been standing not three feet away from him. As he stood there in shocked perplexity, a sense of urgent, imperative need crashed into him, and he suddenly understood.

Hermione needed him.

He was out the door in two seconds, much too quickly for him to question why he was going.

He was halfway to the library when he ran into her. She was racing down the hall toward the Slytherin common room, curls flying wildly around her flushed face, eyes shining, elation rushing ahead of her like a shock wave. She skidded to a halt in front him and for a moment he was struck with the horrifying thought that she was about to launch herself into his arms. Thankfully, she seemed to think better of the idea, and settled for giving a small shriek of pure delight as she thrust a brown leather-bound journal that was sporting some kind of potions stain on the front cover into his hands and pointed to the page she was holding open.

The ingredients and instructions for preparation of a very complicated potion were listed on the page on the left. On the right was a single sentence:

_IT WORKS!_

Draco looked up at Hermione, his numb shock slightly dulling his perception of the ecstatic joy that was flowing off of her. She clasped her hands together and laughed happily, nodding affirmatively at his questioning expression.

"I _told_ you we'd find it!" she exclaimed. If he hadn't still been trying to recover from his shock, he would have made a scathing comment about her inability to hold her "know-it-all" tendencies in check even at a time like this. As it was, however, he was trying very hard to contain his euphoria. He was really quite impressed with himself when the only outward sign he allowed himself to show was an exceptionally wide and triumphant grin.

"I was starting to have my doubts," he admitted, and then wondered why had had admitted it. She smiled back up at him.

"So was I," she confessed. They stared at each other for a moment, just smiling and basking in the glow of their victory. Suddenly, Draco realized that he was smiling like an idiot at _Hermione Granger_ in the bloody hallway for all the world to see. He quickly smothered the smile, and pretended that it didn't sadden him ever so slightly to see Hermione's own smile dim somewhat as his disappeared.

"Did you look through this at all?" he asked her, carefully curbing the brusqueness that would normally have characterized such a question and unsure why he was doing so.

"Not really," she admitted sheepishly. "I got a little excited." He glanced up at her and was unaware that he had given her a small smile until he felt the tiny thrill of pleasure that such an action usually inspired in her.

"Really? You hid it so well," he commented with a straight face. She quirked an eyebrow at him as only she could. He ignored it and returned his attention to the journal.

"Some of these ingredients might be hard to get our hands on," he commented. "I might have to send home for them." Hermione came closer and looked over his shoulder, careful as always not to touch him. Her heat seeped through the thick wool of her sweater and the fine cashmere of his and warmed his skin.

"Maybe not," she commented. "Between the two of us, I think we can come up with all but the last three, and I think Snape probably has those in his private stores. He used to, at least." Draco shot her a look of disbelief and she looked back at him with confusion for a moment before she seemed to realize what she'd said and gasped, putting a hand over her mouth as if to stop the words she'd already said.

"Broke into Snape's private stores, did you?" Her delicate blush answered him. He couldn't help the smirk that twisted on his lips. "That takes balls, Granger. I'm rather impressed." She seemed to struggle for a moment over whether to be insulted or pleased, and settled on a slightly embarrassed pride.

"And apparently not for the last time," she said by way of confirming what their link had already told him. "Can you get the other ingredients together and start on the potion while I get these last three? I'll meet you in that abandoned classroom in the south corridor on the fourth floor."

"All right," he agreed, still beaming with what felt suspiciously like pride at the thought of straight-laced Hermione Granger breaking into a hated professor's office and pinching rare potions ingredients from him for Merlin knew what reason. She turned with a smile and headed toward the stairs; stairs, he realized, which led up and away from Snape's office.

"Uh, Hermione?" She turned and looked back at him expectantly.

"You are aware, I assume, that Snape's office is in the other direction?" She surprised him by grinning with a very Slytherin-like deviousness.

"I need to nip into the Gryffindor common room for a moment to borrow something from Harry first." Without any further explanation, she flipped her impossible curls over one shoulder and all but skipped up the stairs. Her joy lingered in the air like the clean, sweet scent of her shampoo.

Draco looked up the staircase for a few moments, long after she was gone from his sight. Finally, he turned and began to make his way back to the Slytherin common room to gather the necessary ingredients to finally sever the link and put an end to the madness that had ruled his life for the past two months.

Halfway there, he noticed a strange sort of tightening in his chest, and he spent the rest of the walk convincing himself that it was anything but regret.

Hermione didn't take Harry's invisibility cloak off until she'd reached the door outside the classroom where Draco was waiting. She certainly hadn't wanted to be caught wandering the halls with precisely the potions ingredients that Snape would undoubtedly soon discover to be missing from his private stores. She rolled the shimmery cloak into a ball and stuffed it into her bag and checked to make sure the Marauder's Map was folded up and out of sight before pushing the door open and slipping inside.

Draco was standing in front of a table near the middle of the room, blocking the view of whatever was atop the table with his body, his hand hovering discreetly near the pocket of his robes where, she assumed, his wand was hidden. His tense wariness dissipated immediately, and he visibly relaxed, the sight of her inspiring in him a sense of familiarity and something strangely similar to happiness. His pleasant response to her appearance was as cool and soothing to Hermione as the sweetest breeze in spring.

"Did you find them all?" He asked by way of greeting. She sent him a look that she hoped conveyed a message along the lines of 'what do you take me for?' One corner of his lips tipped up at her and she carefully placed her prizes on the table beside the other ingredients he had neatly organized there.

"Someday you'll have to tell me how you managed that little trick, Granger," Draco commented. It was a question born of honest curiosity, and she had the oddest compulsion to actually tell him.

"My lips are sealed," she said evasively.

"Bet I could fix that," Draco replied in a teasing voice as she picked the open journal up to scan the ingredients one more time before beginning the potion. She smiled but didn't look at him.

"Oh?" she said flippantly. "And just how would you do that?"

"I have my ways." His voice had become something of a purr. She rolled her eyes and looked up to find him leaning against the table next to her, much closer than she thought he had been. His mood was light, and playful, and his eyes glittered with good humor like silvery ice in winter sunlight. She smiled; she couldn't help it.

And then, for no reason at all, the harmless flirting didn't seem at all funny any more. She wondered suddenly exactly what Draco's "ways" would entail. She also wondered why his eyes had suddenly stopped sparkling with mischief and were instead swirling with something she had never seen in them before. An unfamiliar emotion began to tug at her heart, pulling at her in a way that was similar to that of a portkey and yet wasn't like it at all.

Hermione blinked, and whatever had been in Draco's oddly intense gaze was gone as if it had never been. That strange pulling sensation had also evaporated, and though she still couldn't place it whatsoever, she could feel that Draco knew precisely what it had been and was not in the least happy about it. His brows furrowed, and he pushed away from the table and began to put space between them, deeply disturbed.

"Let's get started. The sooner this is over, the better," he said with sudden brusqueness. Hermione found she had nothing to say to that, and pretended that it hadn't bothered her as she began to work.

For the next three hours, Hermione and Draco worked in not-quite-companionable silence. The potion was a complicated one, requiring much tedious preparation and minute measurements. They said little, and when they did speak it was with a politeness that seemed quite unnatural between them.

All that silence gave Hermione more time to think than she really cared to have. Draco's statement about finally getting everything over and done with had given her serious pause. She had been so devoted to the search for the cure and then so elated upon finally finding it that she had never stopped to consider that this strange ordeal really would be _over. _

It was quite possible (it fact, it was quite _probable_) that the friendship or whatever-it-was that had somehow formed between them when she wasn't looking would not survive the loss of their strange connection. In her mind's eye, she saw the relationship she had come to treasure so much shatter like an exquisite and fragile stained-glass window, and she looked down at the floor, half-expecting to see colorful and tragic shards of glass around her feet.

She wondered if she would find his face as unreadable as ever once she could no longer tell was he was feeling. She wondered if she had seen that lopsided smile for the last time. She wondered if she would ever hear her given name upon his lips again. She wondered if it was possible to miss him when he was standing right in front of her.

"Okay, it should be ready now." His voice shattered her reverie, and she looked up at him, at his now-familiar face and his dark, troubled eyes.

"Already?" She said it before she could stop herself, and she hoped he couldn't hear the disappointment in her voice.

"Yes, I've just added the last of the black rose petals," he confirmed solemnly. She must have been imagining the foreign sadness she thought she felt infringing upon her own sudden depression.

"Okay, then. Did you bring glasses?" she asked, trying very hard to keep her voice crisp and matter-of-fact. He nodded and motioned to two slim silver cups on the corner of the table. Hermione ladled the correct portions of the potion into each container and handed one to Draco. The mundane action seemed much more meaningful and grim than it should have, she thought.

Once she had her own cup in her hand, she turned to Draco, who was watching her with an expression that might have been regret, and a state-of-mind that was horribly conflicted. She gave him a small, melancholy smile, but he did not smile back. Instead, he reached forward and tapped his cup against hers.

"Cheers, Granger," he said quietly, echoing the toast he had given right before they'd taken the _Partis Sensus_ potion two months earlier when they had been different people and things had been so much clearer. If he noticed the tears pooling in her eyes, he did not mention it.

They drank. Hermione curled her lip as the potion (which tasted sickly-sweet and slightly soured) slithered down her throat. As it pooled in her stomach, she waited for a warm, spreading sensation similar to the one that had proceeded her awareness of Draco's feelings so long ago. Instead, it simply . . . stopped. One moment, she was clinging desperately to her consciousness of Draco's tense expectation, and the next, there was simply nothing.

They looked at each other uncertainly. It seemed to . . . anticlimactic, somehow. She had expected to feel their link being severed as one might feel a bone being broken or an appendage being torn away. Instead, it was simply gone as though it had never been. She wasn't sure why it filled her with sorrow to realize that something that had been such a huge part of her life could be destroyed with so little effort and absolutely no pain at all.

"Well," she said finally. "I suppose we should clean up."

"I suppose so," he agreed quietly. She used every ounce of willpower she possessed to convince herself that it didn't matter that she couldn't read a single emotion in his flat, icy eyes.

They began to clear away the ingredients, packing salvageable left-overs away and tossing everything else. Hermione was using scouring charms on the cauldron they'd made the potion in, and therefore didn't notice when Draco picked up the journal. He stared at the potion ingredients for a moment, and then turned to page and began to read.

Hermione finished cleaning the cauldron and looked up to ask Draco what he wanted to do with it and found him staring at the journal with furrowed brows and a very odd expression.

"What is it, Draco?" she asked. His eyes were as unreadable as ever when he met her gaze.

"We might have a problem."

* * *

**A/N**: Well, there you have it, my darlings. I will attempt to update at least every couple of weeks from here on out. I know that's a big change, but it's better than nothing at all, isn't it? Anyway, for the next installment you may look forward to Draco's perspective on the severing of the link, and, of course, the conclusion of my cruel-but-oh-so-satisfying cliffy! And, I'm sure I don't have to have to tell you, but REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! 


	22. Powerless

**A/N:** Hello, darlings! Almost 2 weeks to the day! Am I good, or what?

A few quick thank-yous: Oh, my reviewers. How I adore you. Good fortune and pink jelly beans upon all your houses. Super-extra thanks to Lorett for the fabulous beta job, as always.

Not much else to say, so without further ado, on to the chapter!

* * *

**Chapter 21: Powerless**

Draco saw the tears she shed as they drank the potion. He did not comment on them because he could think of nothing to ease her pain. He could think of nothing to ease his own, for that matter.

In all his young life, Draco Malfoy had never done anything halfway. He had known the most exquisite luxuries and the deepest sufferings. He hated with consuming passion, and though he believed in very little, when he did it was with a fierce and unwavering loyalty. Now he wished with all his heart that he was capable of feeling _anything_ in moderation, because one more moment of this wrenching regret and insufferable, impossible, unexceptional Hermione Granger would succeed where his father had failed and finally break his heart.

In the brief moments of expectation that followed their consumption of the potion which he had once thought would be his salvation and now seemed hauntingly like the very opposite, he desperately watched her face. In moments of suffering and despair, of which he was sure there would be many, he wanted to remember that there was once a girl, more pure then he would ever be despite his pristine lineage and her muddy blood, who spilled tears for the loss of him. When the world began to seem like too much to bear alone, he wanted to remember that for a few short months, he hadn't needed to.

He watched her eyes, shimmering with unshed tears, and as he felt her grief pour over him, he gave up all pretenses and quit fighting his own. He didn't know if she ever felt it, because suddenly . . . it stopped. She was gone, though she still stood so close that he could reach out and touch her. He missed her, and was grateful, at least, that she couldn't feel it.

Her eyes turned to him, clouded with confusion and a fragility that made him wish he was the sort of man who possessed the strength and will to protect her and she was the sort of girl who would let him.

"Well, I suppose we should clean up," she said finally in a voice that seemed much to strong to be coming from someone who looked ready to shatter at any moment.

"I suppose so," he agreed quietly. He wondered if he imagined the way her eyes searched his own and then seemed to shimmer with renewed sadness.

They cleaned up in silence, and as Hermione finished up, Draco picked up the journal that still lay open on the table. He stared at the list of ingredients and felt more than a twinge of panic when he realized he was scowling at them, half-wishing that they had never found them, that the cure had never existed in the first place. He turned the page abruptly, hoping to banish such traitorous thoughts by removing their source.

He skimmed the following pages idly, absorbed in his troubling thoughts and barely registering the words he read, but he suddenly stopped and felt the blood in his veins go icy with shock. He read the sentences in question again and wondered if it was possible for his heart to sink and leap at the same time.

_It has been a week since I discovered a way to block the symptoms of the Effect. I have not shared the secret of my cure with Edward, much to his anger, but I was unwilling to risk allowing another to ingest the potion until I had a full understanding of any side effects it may have. It was a wise decision, I have since discovered._

_The cure is imperfect. Edward can no longer sense my feelings, but I am still aware of his. I speculate that both parties must drink the potion in order to block the open empathic link. Also, it appears that physical contact no longer invokes the reliving of one's memories, but it does temporarily restore Edward's awareness of my feelings. _

_The worst news, however, came this morning when Edward walked into the lab and almost fell over in shock. Apparently, the potion's effects last only a short while, and he was bombarded with the restoration of our open empathic link. I will have to collect further data in order to specify a more precise timetable, but I would guess that each dose of the potion will probably last no more than a week. Furthermore, I have discovered that the potion does not have any effect if it is consumed any later than five minutes after the brewing is complete, which means that, if I share the cure with Edward, we will have to be in constant contact with one another for the rest of our lives. More information is needed before a plan of action can be outlined._

"What is it, Draco?"

He looked up to find Hermione staring at him, her brow furrowed with concern. He couldn't help but notice that her eyes still seemed huge and wounded in her face, and he allowed himself a moment of weakness and wished he could soothe the pain

"We might have a problem," he said quietly. She frowned and began moving around the table to come stand beside him. He held the journal out to her, but instead of taking it she came to stand beside him and began to read over the bend of his arm. He wondered if she realized how intimate the gesture was, how much it said about the change in their relationship that she would so casually invade his personal space when she could have just as easily avoided any physical closeness with him at all.

He watched her face, feeling the absence of their link like a physical ache as he tried to discern her reaction to the passage. Her features remained impressively impassive as the cure they had so long sought in order to break away from one another was essentially snatched away from them. When she finished, she looked up at him, her eyes guarded and almost calculating, as though she were hiding her own reaction until she could gauge his.

"Do you believe it?" she asked quietly.

"Don't see any reason to doubt her," he responded, still searching her face for any hint that might give away what she was thinking. He certainly hoped she wasn't going to wait until she figured out what _he_ thought about it to reveal her own feelings on the subject, because it could be a long wait. He had no idea himself.

Draco suddenly found the entire situation ridiculous. Here they stood, having just discovered that they were essentially going to be bonded to one another for the rest of their lives no matter what direction they decided to take next, and all they could do was stare at one another with wary, guarded eyes, unwilling to react until the other did. Why were they not yelling or screaming or laughing hysterically or sobbing incoherently or jumping up and down for joy? They should be doing _something_ at least, _anything_, or at least she should. He had been raised all his life to keep his emotions, his weaknesses, closely guarded, but Hermione had never seemed to possess the capacity to hide what she felt. Her lack of response worried him.

"Well, aren't you going to say anything?" he finally asked, more exasperation in his voice than he would have liked.

"Aren't you?" she countered.

"What would you have me say?" She surprised him by smiling very sadly at him.

"Doesn't it strike you how pathetic we're being?" she asked in response to his questioning look. "For months on end now we've been forced to be as close as two people can possibly be, and now we can't even talk to each other like civilized people."

"I know," he agreed, running a hand through his mussed hair wearily. "I'm willing to try it if you are." She nodded slightly and lowered herself into the chair behind her. Draco leaned against the desk, waiting for her to begin.

"Aren't you angry?" she asked. He blinked at her. It was not what he'd been expecting.

"No. Why on earth would I be?"

"Well, you've just learned that you're going to be in constant contact with a Mudblood for the rest of your life, bound to her forever no matter what you do. Doesn't that bother you?" There was a certain bitterness in her voice, paired with a small amount of hope that tore at his heart. He studied her as she sat there staring up at him and pondered the question she had posed, and as he watched that painfully ordinary face, he felt something in his chest, something small and fragile and oh-so-significant, shatter into dust.

And suddenly, he knew the answer. He was less surprised by what it was than by how easy it was to accept. He briefly considered not revealing it to her (_so you'll have time to talk yourself out of it_, his subconscious whispered traitorously), but he heard himself speaking the words before he could do anything about it.

"No, it doesn't bother me. And I don't think of you that way anymore."

"You don't?" He would have thought it impossible for her eyes to get any wider than they already were, but apparently he was wrong.

"No," he said evenly. He wondered if she knew how hard those words were to say, how much they meant to him, how precious a secret he had just shared with her.

"Why?"

"Isn't it enough just to know that I don't?"

"Yes, it's enough." And, damn it all to hell, she was crying again. Didn't she realize that he had no idea what to do with a crying woman? His instincts seemed quite convinced that the best course of action would be to gather her up in his arms and hold her until she stopped, but he was relatively certain that doing so would probably qualify as a sign of a coming apocalypse.

"Bloody hell, Hermione. There's nothing to cry about," he said irritably. And she laughed, and it was the loveliest sound he'd ever heard, and he was so pleased that he was the one to cause it that he didn't even find it odd that he found such happiness in making her smile.

"So what do we do now?" she asked when the laughter had subsided. It took him a moment to answer her because he was distracted by a tear that was still trailing down her cheek.

"I suppose we go study for our Arithmancy exam, and then in a week we make the potion all over again, and then we take it from there," he said finally.

"Sounds good to me," she agreed. The tear slid still farther down her cheek, leaving a shimmering trail in its wake, and before he knew what he was doing Draco reached up and brushed the it away with his thumb.

He wasn't sure, afterwards, if he'd forgotten that physical contact would restore the link or if he had remembered and hadn't cared. He was almost certain that he hadn't been consciously thinking of it, but he suspected that on some level he had known precisely what he was doing and what was going to happen once he'd done it. Either way, by the time either of them could do anything to prevent it, his skin brushed hers and tingling warmth seeped into his fingers where they touched her.

As soon as the contact was made, a jolt of awareness shot between them and crackled in the air like heat lightening. He felt all the usual things from her -- her oh-so-familiar presence, a sparkly happiness, the gentle affection she had begun to harbor towards him and which he had pretended hadn't pleased him to know end -- but there was something else there now, something volatile and shocking and unbelievable. _Desire_. It pulsed around Draco in waves, shimmering like liquid light. It shouldn't have been, shouldn't have existed for either of them. He wondered how long it had been there, how long they had been hiding and ignoring and denying it. There was no denying it now.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, Hermione wrenched herself away from the touch, severing the connection and leaving a gaping hole in Draco where her longing had been. Without another word, she turned and fled the room. After barely a few seconds' hesitation, he went after her.

* * *

Hermione fled the abandoned classroom as though the hounds of Hell were snapping at her heels. She didn't have much experience in such matters, but unless she was much mistaken, the emotion that had pulsed into her body from Draco's touch, which she suspected he'd been feeling from her as well, was quite the _opposite_ of hatred.

She turned a corner in one of the second floor corridors and tripped over an uneven stone. The interruption in her rhythm made Hermione suddenly aware of the burning in her lungs and the screaming protests of her legs, unused to such strenuous activity. She stumbled to a halt in front of a large, gilded mirror, putting her hands on the table that was situated before it, dropping her head and resting her weight on her arms as she caught her breath.

When her heart began to slow, she raised her head and stared into her own reflection. She searched her face for something, _anything_, that might have inspired the flash of heat in Draco that had seared her skin and melted the silver of his eyes. There was _nothing_. Frizzy hair and boring eyes and plain features. He should not have felt it, should not have confused her so horrible, should not have made her feel it back.

She had never felt anything like that jolt of longing that Draco's touch had sparked to life in her. Not with Ron, and certainly never with Viktor. Was this what Lavender and Parvati had been giggling incessantly about for so many years? Was it true what they said, that it was rare and wonderful thing that should be held onto with both hands and all the passion one could muster?

She wanted, inexplicably, to cry again. That aching need was supposed to go hand in hand with love and comfort and respect, was it not? But it was also supposed to be uncontrollable, to strike in unexpected places and take the choice away from its victims.

"Not him," she whispered to her reflection. "Why did it have to be him?"

And then he was there. He skidded around the corner, his face slightly flushed, his shimmering hair in disarray, and when his eyes locked with hers in the mirror, she felt her heart sink as she realized she was powerless to turn away.

When he spoke, his voice sounded ragged and strange, the refined drawl strained to the point of being practically unrecognizable.

"It's crazy. You and me together -- that's crazy, Granger. You know it is." She did know, but she had the odd feeling that he wasn't really trying to convince her as much as he was trying to convince himself.

"So do you," she replied.

"So what do we do about it?" he wanted to know. She gathered her will, every ounce of strength and courage she possessed, and turned to face him.

"Nothing," she said, hoping her voice conveyed a finality she didn't feel.

"But --"

"Just ignore it, Malfoy," she repeated with admirable composure.

"Fine, we'll ignore it," he agreed in barely more than a whisper. He blinked, and his eyes had gone strangely flat again. "Do you still want to study for Arithmancy?" he asked suddenly.

"I don't really feel like studying anymore," she whispered back. "Maybe tomorrow?" He nodded curtly, bowing his head in a formal way that she suspected might have broken her heart just a little bit. He turned to leave, but stopped suddenly and turned back to look at her. His eyes were once again dark, like molten silver, and she hoped he couldn't see her tremble as she stared at them.

He took three slow steps toward her, until the tips of their shoes were almost touching and just stared at her. For an insane moment, Hermione wanted nothing more than for him to stop being so damn noble and kiss her. Instead, he raised his one hands as if to stoke her cheek. His fingers drifted a centimeter away from her skin and brushed the curl that so often hung in her eyes behind her ear. She could feel tendrils of his need for her drifting between their skin like wisps of smoke.

"Goodbye, Hermione," he whispered. He walked past her and for a long time she stood staring at the spot he had just occupied. Then she began to make her way back to the library to collect her forgotten Arithmancy books, feeling as hollow as the stone hallways as her footsteps echoed on the walls.

* * *

**A/N:** And there you have it. Actual romance! I know, I know, you're still in shock. When you regain control of your higher cognitive functions, hit that review button and make my day!

Now, a few questions answered:

Several people have asked how much longer this fic is going to be. Answer: I don't know for sure, but I would wager that it won't be more than four or five more chapters.

A LOT of people have asked how much longer you will have to wait for the kiss. Answer: Approximately 2 weeks, my darlings, because it's coming up next chappie! Whoo-hoo!


	23. Crazy

**A/N:** Hello, my darlings! Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. Here is the new chappie, ahead of schedule and everything. Damn, I'm good.

Thanks goes out:

To for finally waking up and giving us a way to respond to our reviewers (not that I had time to do it this last round, but look for responses next time you review)

To everyone who reviewed, for your general awesomeness.

To Lorett, for being the world's best beta.

So here's the romance you've long been craving, my dears. I hope it meets up with your expectations. I quite enjoyed writing it.

* * *

**Chapter 22: Crazy**

It turned out that forgetting was much more easily said than done.

It wasn't that Hermione didn't try, because she _did_. She tried to forget the things she had felt in the abandoned classroom, the way his eyes has glittered and swirled as they'd stood talking in the hallway, the feel of his hand brushing her hair away from her face. She threw herself into her schoolwork with more fervor than even she would have ever thought possible in an attempt to banish the memories, but nothing helped ease the longing that plagued her in the days that followed.

When distraction failed to helped, she turned to rationalization instead. In her logical way of thinking, if you couldn't explain it away, you just weren't looking hard enough.

She began to slowly compile a list of the reasons that a relationship between Draco Malfoy and herself was possibly the worst idea ever conceived by muggle or wizard.

The first reason came to her as she watched him terrorize a young Hufflepuff second-year who had walked into him in the Great Hall.

_#1: Draco is an arrogant, insufferable bully and all-around pain in the ass._

The next day, reason number two presented itself as she stared hopelessly down at her Transfiguration notes the night before the exam, not comprehending a word she read.

_#2: If thinking about him NOW is detracting from my schoolwork, what would it be like if we were actually together? _

Wednesday night, she came up with her third reason as she sat in the common room with Harry, Ron, and the other Gryffindor seventh-years and listened to them rail on and on about a nasty run-in they'd had with the Slytherins earlier in the day.

_#3: Our lives are so different, our friends are so different, WE are so different. No one will ever understand._

Finally, on Friday morning as the students ate breakfast in the Great Hall and did a little last minute studying, a regal-looking owl with golden feathers landed gracefully on Draco's shoulder and offered him a letter bearing the Malfoy crest. As he read it, his eyes darkened and he sent Hermione an inscrutable and vaguely hopeless look. She did not know what the letter said, but she could guess, and it was enough to give her the fourth and final reason.

_#4: No matter what has happened, no matter how he's changed, his family has not, and they would never allow him to be with someone like me. I could never ask him to turn his back on them . . . not that he ever would._

With this thought heavy on her heart and somehow failing to lessen the longing that already weighed it down, she headed to her final exam: Potions.

The dungeon was nearly full when Hermione arrived. The faces of her classmates were pale and tense, which was really to be expected considering the notorious difficulty of Snape's exams. Pansy looked positively ill (which, if Hermione were honest with herself, gave her a small thrill of vindictive delight) and a Ravenclaw girl with wild auburn curls was visibly shaking with nervous tension.

For the first time all week, Hermione did not feel unprepared. For some reason, the hours she and Draco had spent studying for this particular exam stood out with startling clarity in her mind, and she felt like a walking textbook on the subject of emotional potion-making. She had to smile ruefully at the realization that, in a way, she _was_ a walking textbook on the subject.

Now that thoughts of Draco had crept into her mind, she knew it was no use to try to push them out again. She searched the room for him, and spotted him sitting alone at a table near the back, his eyes trained upon her as they had been all week.

As if her ongoing quest to forget what had flared between them wasn't hard enough, Draco had hampered her progress even further by never taking his eyes off her. She caught him staring at her almost every time she stole a glance at him (which was much more often than she cared to admit). He watched her as though he wasn't entirely sure he wasn't imagining her, as if his visual contact was the only thing keeping her from vanishing into a puff of smoke and memories. She wanted him to stop looking at her that way, and yet at the same time she wanted to stare right back at him until the whole world crumbled to dust around them.

Was it any wonder, she thought, that she had performed abysmally on every examination she'd taken this week? Being Hermione Granger had been hard enough before Draco Malfoy had started staring at her and messing up her entire life in the process. She consoled herself with the knowledge that in a few hours time the term would be over and she would have two blessed weeks to put distance between herself and the heat in Draco's eyes.

Snape entered the room with a sneer and a flourish of his dark robes, and the restless, nervous chatter gave way to a painfully tense silence. The examinations were handed out with no further directions or suggestions, and Hermione quickly assessed the test. A list of difficult but not impossible multiple choice questions, and an essay . . . on the _Partis Sensus_ potion.

If she had not been absolutely certain that Snape would deduct an obscene amount of points from Gryffindor, she would have laughed aloud. Instead, she smiled and shook her head very slightly at the utter appropriateness. She did not look up, _refused_ to look up, but she was sure that Draco was smiling too . . . and looking right at her, no doubt. Oddly enough, the thought that they were sharing a private joke was somewhat comforting, and she began her test, unaware that a small smile still lingered on her face.

Two hours later, the exam was over. After assessing the expressions on her classmates' faces, Hermione added, "saved my ass on my Potions exam" to the short but oh-so-significant list of good things that came out of her adventures with the _Partis Sensus_ potion.

Most students left the room in an agitated scramble as soon as they were dismissed, but Hermione, still basking in the glow of her assured success on at least _one_ of her exams, packed her things at a leisurely pace and was therefore one of the last to leave the classroom.

She wasn't aware of his presence until he was standing not a foot in front of her. She could smell his spicy cologne and feel the heat of his skin, could see every luminous golden hair on the back of his hands and hear the soft, rhythmic sound of his breathing. They had not been this close since that moment in the hallway when she had turned him away (with perfectly good reason, she thought desperately), and suddenly his very nearness was making her forget why she'd been trying to forget him.

"Could we talk for a moment, Hermione?" he asked in a low voice. She finally gathered the courage to look up and meet his eyes and could not suppress the tremble that shivered through her when she did.

"Alright," she said in what she hoped was an even voice. She cast a glance at the door and saw Harry lingering in the doorframe, a small frown on his lips. She gave him a small, reassuring smile and waved her hand to tell him she was okay. He nodded and turned to follow Ron, but the frown did not go away, she noted. It saddened her slightly, and she thought again that she and Draco would never find acceptance from those they cared about the most.

She turned her attention back to Draco and found him still staring at her, and she was close enough to see that his eyes were a dark, hot shade today, like melted pewter.

"What did you want to speak with me about?" she asked, cursing the formality of her voice and her words because she knew he would see them for what they were (a defense meant to keep him at arms length). Her words seemed to snap him out of whatever reverie he entered when he looked at her, and he blinked in confusion before his inscrutable mask of coolness fell over his features.

"We need to discuss our arrangements regarding the potion," he said crisply. "The effects should be wearing off in approximately two days. We should be far enough away from one another that we will feel no immediate effects, but the dreams may still be a problem and we will have to deal with the restored link when we get back to school. Are you willing to risk that, or would you rather meet during the holiday and continue to take the potion on schedule?"

She blinked at him, shocked that she hadn't thought of the same thing before now. She must really be slipping.

"I suppose . . . I suppose it would be safer to wait until we get back to school. My parents' house is no place to be brewing potions or storing volatile ingredients, so we would have to meet at Malfoy Manor . . ."

" . . . And, for obvious reasons, we can't do that," he finished for her. She thought she detected a trace of bitterness in his voice to match the bitterness in her heart, but she might have been imagining it. She wondered if it seemed as unfair to him as it did to her that his family's prejudice still divided them even after he had found the strength and courage and will to reject it.

"When we have more time to plan, we can come up with an alternative meeting place, but for now, I suppose we'll just have to be very careful," she said quietly. He nodded his assent.

"Very well. Happy Holidays, Hermione," he said as he began walking to the door.

"Happy Holidays," she echoed as she watched him retreat. And suddenly, for no reason at all, she couldn't stand to see him turn the corner and be gone from her life for two entire weeks.

"Draco?" Her voice broke as she said it, and it sounded suspiciously like a sob even to her own ears. It was enough to stop him in his tracks though, and he turned to look back at her with a questioning raise of one eyebrow.

"Why do you stare at me?" She wasn't entirely sure where the question came from, and she was mortified that she'd said it, but it was apparently the right thing to say, because the unreadable mask fell away. Suddenly, he was there again, the Draco who had spent so many afternoons with her in the library, who smiled at her when no one else was looking, who saw her for what she was despite seventeen years of training to the contrary.

"Because I can't seem to stop," he said quietly after a moment. His expression was a mixture of longing and hopelessness. "What have you done to me, Granger?"

"Nothing," she stammered. "I've done nothing."

"Exactly," he whispered back, his despair so sharp and poignant that it was practically tangible. "You've done nothing, and that's what's really and truly terrible about all this. You're exactly who you used to be, and I'm exactly who _I_ used to be, and yet here we are. Here I am, wanting you for no reason at all."

His words left Hermione feeling lightheaded and unstable. She didn't know what to say, so she simply stared at him. As he crossed the room to stand in front of her, is eyes seemed to be pleading with her, and she wanted suddenly to be able to give him everything that he could ever want or need. By the time he spoke again, she thought she probably would have given him the moon if he'd asked it of her.

"I feel like I've been shattered into a million pieces and then put back together, and somehow some of the pieces got lost in the process." He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, dropping his head until his forehead didn't quite touch her own. "Do you think I'm mad?"

"I think we're both mad, that the whole world is mad," she said quietly, fighting the urge to laugh. "None of this makes any sense at all."

His eyes opened, and though they were not touching, Hermione could have sworn she felt the heat race between them like arcs of electricity. She shivered slightly.

"What we said the other day, about the two of us together being crazy? That's still true," he said in an almost paternal warning voice.

"I agree," she said breathily.

"Do you care?"

For a moment, it seemed like no one in the world breathed or moved or did anything at all. The entire universe seemed to be holding its breath, poised on a precipice as it waited for her answer.

"No."

"Me neither." And then he kissed her, and she wondered if maybe the rest of her life had been the crazy part, and this was the first thing to ever happen to her that made any sense at all.

* * *

When Draco had lingered after class to talk to Hermione, he really hadn't meant for this to happen.

He knew insanity when he saw it. He knew that feeling what he did for Hermione Granger went against everything he had ever thought and believed. He knew that any relationship with her would be volatile and practically doomed to fail. He knew that no one would understand or accept what they had together. He knew that even if all of the rest of that fell away, his fate had been decided long ago and it did not include her.

He knew all this, and yet he couldn't seem stop wishing it wasn't so. He was vaguely aware that he was being selfish (which was fine with him, since he had no problem admitting that he was a selfish, arrogant bastard in general), but he wanted to be happy. Happiness was the one luxury the Malfoys could not afford, because happiness had an unfortunate tendency to overrule things like duty and family honor, and they couldn't have that. In short, if being with her made Draco happy, then it was very, very dangerous to be Hermione Granger. Her life would be worth less than nothing if his family even suspected that her existence was threatening the obedience of their son and heir.

And so he kept his distance, despite every fiber of his being telling him to stop being so damn foolish and grab onto whatever this was with both hands. He was inexpressibly grateful that she had been able to turn him away in the hall last weekend, because he knew he was just weak enough to give in if she showed even the slightest inclination to reciprocate.

He had been enormously impressed with his own will power as he'd stood not a foot in front of her and talked in a civil manner, never once giving in to the urge to reach out and touch her just to make sure she was really there and not a cruel figment of his imagination. He had been so, strong, had come so close to walking away. If only she hadn't asked him why he stared.

He couldn't lie to her, and once the truth had begun to pour out, there was no stopping it. When he'd finished, he'd offered her the chance to save them both and put an end to this madness as he could not, but she hadn't taken it, and damn it all, he just wasn't strong enough to walk away again.

And so he'd kissed her, defying a week's worth of his better judgment, six years of hatred and hostility, and an entire lifetime of beliefs. And it was worth it.

At the first gentle, tentative brush of lips to lips, warmth began to pour through Draco, tingling and sparking like an ocean of fireflies. Hermione's emotions flooded through him in the wake of the heat, and he felt himself shake slightly at the power of their combined desire. Her feelings poured through him until he couldn't tell the difference between her emotions and sensations and his own.

Draco had kissed his share of girls in his time (and a few other people's shares, if he was going to be perfectly honest) but he had never had kiss like this one. It felt alarmingly like coming home, like filling up holes inside him that he hadn't even known were there.

He wasn't entirely sure how long he stood there kissing her -- it felt like both an eternity and an instant -- but when he finally pulled away for air, his hands were tangled in the raw silk of her hair, and her small, pale hands were clutching the front of his robes as though he were the only thing keeping her from floating away.

Unwilling to break contact just yet, relishing the comfort of having their link in place, Draco did not pull away from her. Instead, he simply leaned his forehead against her while she caught her breath. Surprise and wonder flowed off of her, mixing headily with her tentative desire and a quiet sense of completion that mirrored his own.

"That was . . ." she began.

"Crazy," he whispered. She blinked at him and a horrible melancholy stole over her and pricked at Draco's heart like a tide of nettles.

"Crazy," she echoed sadly.

For a few long moments, Draco allowed himself the weakness of keeping her cradled in his arms, but he knew it couldn't last. He had to go home . . . Home, where he had duties and obligations and a life that had already been planned out for him and certainly did not include falling in love with Hermione Granger. That's what he was doing, he realized, had been doing practically since the moment she'd reached out and touched his arm in Potions class. And that was why this couldn't go on for another moment.

Very gently, Draco extricated Hermione from his arms. She looked up at him with sad, old eyes and kept his hand clutched in her own for as long as she possibly could. When their fingers finally fell apart, their link was snapped with cruel, painless abruptness. He felt cold without her there. He wondered if he would always feel cold.

"I have to go," he said finally. He knew she understood what he was saying: that he had to return to his world now, a world in which she had no place and what they had together was a dangerous thing for both of them. He knew she understood that he was saying goodbye.

"I know," she replied quietly. He smiled tenderly at her. She did not smile back, but he rather understood that, and with a small nod, he turned and began to walk out of the room.

He was not blind to the irony of the fact that he was only aware that he had a heart now that it was breaking.

"Stay." He halted in his tracks and closed his eyes, swallowing hard. Oh, please, don't ask me that, he thought despairingly. I might not be able to say no.

"What do you mean, 'stay?'" he asked quietly, not turning around.

"Don't go home," she said quietly. "Stay here." He knew what she was really asking him to do: choose this world over the other. Choose her over them.

"I can't do that," he whispered as he turned around to meet her eyes. They were shimmering with tears now, wide and pleading, and he was glad he'd already refused her request, because he wasn't sure he could find the strength to do it while she was looking at him that way.

"Not even now?" she asked.

"Especially not now," he replied. Perhaps he could have turned from them once, when he was putting only himself at risk by incurring their wrath, but now he had something to protect, something far more precious and valuable than his own tainted life. He could only hope she understood that.

She nodded finally, in a way that spoke of accepted defeat. Draco nodded back, and then he turned and walked away from her in every way that he knew how.

* * *

**A/N:** I know, I know, you're mad at me again. I can't help it, my dears, I have very little control over what spills out onto these pages. Don't you worry, though, things will work out alright in the end.

Just forewarning, the next chappie may be the last. It all depends on what I decide to do next. I don't know if any of you need to get mentally prepared (_I_ certainly do), but I thought I'd let you know. In the meantime, review, review, review!


	24. Linked

**A/N:** Well, here it is, my darlings. Before you lies the last chapter of _Linked_. I'm sorry it's taken so long, but the holidays have been hectic, and, to be perfectly honest, I had a really hard time writing this. I don't think I wanted to see it end.

I posted the first chappie of _Linked _way back in June. At the time, I had never reviewed a HP story or exchanged a single word with members of the Draco/Hermione community. I was flying blind with a story that had only one other chappie written and no real direction. I had no idea what I was doing or what to expect. My goal was to have 50 total reviews for the story by the time I finished it.

Well, it's six months later. _Linked_ is now on the fav stories list of no less than 346 people. It is my baby, and has been a significant part of my life for so long that I barely know what to do with myself now that it's over. We are nearing the 1000 review mark. Though your reviews, I feel that I have come to know some of the smartest, funniest people on the planet. I feel truly blessed, and not a little bit awed.

I would like to thank all of you for your unending support, your inspiring words, your helpful advice, and your constant and uplifting presence in my life. Hearing your feedback has improved me immensely as a writer and as a person, I'd like to think. It means so much to me to know that I have people out there who appreciate the passion and feeling I pour into my writing and respond to it with equal passion and feeling. You all mean more to me than you can know.

To my ladies over at the Keys yahoo group: Oh, where would I be without my girls? Bored as hell and lonely, that's where. For months of friendship, support, and laughter, you have my unending love and eternal thanks. Here's to many, many more stories, chats, and reviews in the future! I love you, my darlings!

Lastly, I have to send out a hundred million trillion thank-you's to Lorett. Thank you for being a wonderful beta and muse and sounding board when I needed one most. Thank you for snaring me into your net and taking me into a community where I have found friendship and laughter. Thank you, most of all, for being an extraordinary lady and a precious friend.

Here it is, my darlings. May you enjoy every word.

* * *

**Chapter 23: Linked**

After the third time he searched the room for his Arithmancy book only to realize it was already in his trunk, Draco gave up on his half-hearted attempts to pack and threw himself rather ungracefully on his bed. His mind was not on what clothing and school supplies he would be needing for the two weeks he spent at Malfoy Manor. His mind was instead on a small, rather unexceptional girl who was making him honestly consider giving up everything he'd ever known on the off chance that she could make him as happy as he thought she could.

He prayed to whatever deities might be listening that he was doing the right thing in walking away from this. The doubt gnawing painfully at his heart was probably just his inherent selfishness, trying to make him seek his own happiness at whatever cost. He was doing the only thing he could to keep her safe, he reasoned desperately. He thought back to the nightmare he'd had in which he had been required to save Hermione from himself, and he wondered if perhaps he had a bit of Seer in him.

They had nothing in their favor, he knew. The odds were heavily against them, and that was even assuming that they would both make it through the coming war alive and unscathed, which was almost equally unlikely as having a happily-ever-after ending. The only thing in the world that suggested they might work was this feeling in his chest that it _had_ to work, that it was the only thing in his life that had ever made any sense at all, and what sort of guarantee for the future was _that_?

No, he decided as he sat up, this was for the best. He would return home to a life of duty and expectations, and she would get on with her life and find someone who could love her so much better than he ever could, who would be kind and loving and good. And she would be safe. He would keep her safe from his family, Potter and Weasley would keep her safe during the war, and he could die knowing that he had made at least one decision that turned out to be the right one.

With these thoughts in his mind and a renewed determination in his heart, Draco got back up and returned to the task of packing for the holiday. He pulled open his nightstand drawer to make sure nothing of value was being left behind and found himself face to face with _the_ journal. He was rather surprised to see it, having almost forgotten about it altogether.

He briefly considered slamming the drawer shut and letting the journal stay there forever, but he found himself seized with an unbearable curiosity. Had Delilah James made the same decision he was making now? Had she chosen duty over love? All evidence seemed to suggest it, from the despairing hopelessness that tinged her writing to the indisputable fact that she had consented to an arranged marriage with a Malfoy rather than being with the man she loved.

And suddenly, Draco had to know. He snatched the volume out of the drawer and fell unceremoniously into his desk chair, flipping wildly through the pages. Near the end of the entries, he found was he was looking for.

_I have to end it. Father has decided to announce my engagement to one of the Malfoy heirs, and he will be expecting my full acquiesce in the matter. I cannot refuse him. If I did, they would wonder why, and they would surely find out, eventually, no matter how careful we've tried to be. And they would kill him, I'm sure of it. I can't risk that. He's far too precious to me. I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't die with him, at least in the ways that matter. I will have to tell him tonight . . ._

Draco sat back, feeling her pain as acutely as if it were his own. He supposed it _was_ his own, in a way. He turned the page to read the next entry.

_I am to marry tonight. I can't help wondering where Edward is right now. I wonder if his heart aches the way mine does when he thinks of me pledging myself to another. I wonder if he knows that I love him and that everything I do is to keep him safe. I wonder if knowing that only makes it worse for him. I hope not. I hope he has all the happiness in the world, all the happiness I could never give him and that I will never have because I am not with him. _

The next entry was written in a different sort of ink, and the handwriting seemed to have changed slightly. Draco supposed a considerable amount of time had passed between this entry and the one before it.

_He's getting married. I read it in the Daily Prophet this morning and nearly broke one of Blake's mother's best china teacups when I dropped it. I think Blake knew something was wrong, but he didn't seem to care very much, which isn't really that unusual, I suppose. I waited until I was back in my rooms before I dared look at the picture that accompanied the article. They looked happy. He seemed to love her. I've never felt so empty. It's like I'm living the night I left him over and over again, and dying a little more each time. _

The page on which these few words were written was stained with dozens of teardrops. Draco tried to imagine Hermione being with someone else, having a life without him in it. The next breath he drew was so painful, he wondered if it was really possible to die of grief.

He didn't want to read any more of this, but he couldn't seem to pull himself away. There were only a few more entries, each one a short response to some milestone in either her or Edward's lives that drove her back to the solace of her writing. He finally reached the last entry, which appeared to have been written in the wobbly, uncertain hand of someone of great age.

_He died today. I felt it deep in my bones like something fundamental was being ripped away from me. It took me a moment to realize that the dreadful, unearthly sound in my ears was my own sobbing. Celia's children had brought her to see me (she hasn't liked to visit since Blake died; she always did love her father more than me), and I imagine they thought I'd finally met my end. I have no doubt they were bitterly disappointed that I survived. _

_They know nothing. I _did_ die in that instant; I must have, for how can I possibly be alive when half of me is gone? I have missed him for almost all my life, but I was a fool to think we'd ever really been apart. He was always with me, always loved me. I should have known, should have felt it, because now I feel the loss of it more acutely than all the accumulated sufferings of my life combined. _

_It seems so clear now, looking back. I did my duty, lived a life of loneliness to keep him safe. Eventually our spouses died, our work ended, all the people and circumstances we feared fell away into nothingness. But our love, the one thing I ever wanted and the only thing I ever really sacrificed, endured beyond all that. We were apart and miserable (I was, at least) for our entire lives, and it seems so pointless now. I could have grown old with him. My children could have had his eyes and his beautiful, loving heart. My life could have been happy. Perhaps a bit harder, at least in the beginning, but so much happier. Never have I regretted my decision more than I do now, now that I see the pointlessness of it. It was supposed to be the one thing in my life I ever did right. How utterly stupid I was. _Loving him_ was the only thing I ever did right. I wish I could tell him so. He deserved that much. He deserved more than that, and if I had it to do all over again, I would give him whatever was mine to give, even myself. Especially myself. I've always belonged to him, anyway. _

Draco blinked at the page, wondering vaguely if his heart had really stopped or if he only felt like it had. He looked around his plush quarters, at the expensive clothes strewn carelessly into his trunk, at the platinum-tipped quill on the desk in front of him, at the Italian leather shoes that marched arrogantly across the shelves of his closet. He looked back down at the journal in his hands, where the final words of a broken-hearted woman recorded the anguish of a soul left to face the world without its mate.

Draco took a deep breath, snapped the journal shut, and left the room. The door slammed behind him with a finality that echoed in the stone hallway almost as loudly as it did in his heart.

* * *

She was in the Astronomy Tower when he found her.

As soon as she heard the scrape of his shoes on the stone, she whirled around. Her cheeks were wet with tears, half her hair had been pulled out of its knot by the chilly wind and now flew haphazardly around her head, her eyes were puffy from crying, and her features were creased with sorrow. He thought she was probably the loveliest thing he'd ever seen.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, obviously making a supreme effort not to let her voice tremble. He tried to ignore the accusatory tone of her question, the bone-deep, aching sadness in her eyes that made it almost painful to meet her gaze.

"I have something to say to you," he replied quietly.

"You have something to say to me," she repeated in a flat voice. She turned to face him fully, and as she studied his face he saw a tightly-reined-in fury building just beneath the pain in her eyes. "_You_ have something to say to _me_?" Her voice rose considerably with each emphasized word. "Well, you don't _get_ to say anything to me, Draco, because I have something to say to you first."

"And what might that be?" he asked as calmly as he could manage, considering he was standing there staring at the girl in whose hands he was about to place his future.

"Who do you think you are?" she exploded, moving violently forward while her eyes flashed with fire. "This isn't just about you, you know. This is my life, too, and I don't think I'm going to let you spoil the only thing that's ever made sense in it because you've decided to grow a conscience." He knew it was probably the last thing he should do, but he couldn't help the bemused smirk that twisted his lips.

"And what do you propose to do about it?" he asked.

"I'll tell you what I propose to do about it!" she snapped, stalking toward him and looking less like an angry teenage girl than like a rabid jungle cat. "I'm just not going to let you walk away."

"You're not going to let me," he repeated, trying very hard to not grin at her or kiss her, both of which seemed like unwise courses of action at the present time.

"That's right!" she blustered. "I'm not going to let you. You think you can just sweep in here and change my life and then walk back out again? Well, you're wrong, damn it, because I think I love you, and that doesn't happen to me everyday. Now, don't give me that look, Draco Malfoy," she warned, shaking a finger at him. He felt his mouth snap shut and realized it must have been hanging open. "I know you think I'm mad, but you'd better bloody get used to it, you arrogant, impossible git, because I'm not going anywhere."

With that, Hermione seemed to bluster herself out, and she stood there with her chest heaving and her eyes shining and her hair flying absolutely _everywhere_, and Draco realized he'd made the right choice. He took a slow, deliberate step toward her, raised his hand and began smoothing the hair away from her face, one strand at a time, until all that remained was the single, stubborn curl that always fell across her forehead. She trembled as he tucked that final piece of hair behind her ear and let his hand linger on her face. He let everything he was feeling flow through the tips of his fingers and into the warm skin of her temple.

"An arrogant, impossible git, am I?" he asked very quietly. "Well, I'll tell you something. _You_ are a high-strung, insufferable know-it-all." He pressed a feather-light kiss to her mouth and then leaned down further still so that his lips brushed the shell of her ear. "And I've decided to stay."

Her fingers tightened convulsively on his arms and he felt joy flow through them both like the first breeze in spring.

"Really?" she whispered.

"Yeah, _really,_" he whispered back. He felt her smile against his neck.

"Good."

* * *

Hermione had never considered herself to be the weepy girly type.

She knew that Harry and Ron saw her as a sobbing mental, but being boys, they had a rather skewed perspective on what qualified a person as an emotional basketcase. She cried as much as the next girl, but no _more _than the average level-headed teenager that she was. In fact, considering the extraordinary hardships and experiences that life had thrust upon her thus far, she thought she was probably one of the most emotionally stable and composed girls on the face of the earth.

With all that in mind, it was rather remarkable how many times she had been driven to tears in the last week. She had cried over the severing of the link, over Draco's admission that his prejudices had finally fallen away, over a spilt goblet of pumpkin juice at breakfast a few days before, over Draco walking out of her life. And now she was crying again, this time because he had just walked back into it.

With the wind icy on her back and Draco's body furnace-hot against her, Hermione was crying as if the world had ended. In a way, she supposed it had, because in the world she had always known, she would not be standing there sobbing into Draco Malfoy's expensive robes while he stroked her hair and spoke soothing, loving words into her ear.

He'd chosen _her_. It didn't seem possible, somehow. He was many things, but he wasn't mad, and if the Malfoy heir throwing his lot in with a Muggle-born witch who happened to be Harry Potter's best friend wasn't madness, then what was? Perhaps he was mad after all. Perhaps they both were.

Finally, she composed herself enough to pull back and look at him. Hermione knew she must look a fright, with her face splotchy from crying and her hair a tangled mess and her nose running from the cold and the tears, but he was looking at her as though he had never seen anything so beautiful or precious.

"Granger, this is utter insanity," he said in a serious voice and a grin on his face that warmed her down to her toes.

"Definitely," she agreed solemnly. His grin faded and he raised a hand to cup her cheek.

"They'll try to take this away from us," he whispered urgently. "They won't understand." She could feel his fear, his fierce protectiveness, his desperate need to make her comprehend the depth of his conviction and belief in her, in them, seeping into her wherever their bodies met.

Hermione laughed softly, sadly.

"Of course they won't. I'm not even sure I do." He didn't respond to her admittedly lame attempt at humor.

"We're going to have to fight so hard for this, and even then we don't have much of a chance," he reminded her, though she didn't really need reminding. She sighed heavily and raised her own hand to cover his and press it closer to her face.

"I know." And she did. "But some things are worth fighting for."

"Like this," Draco said softly, and there was a vulnerable uncertainty in his voice, his eyes, and in his heart that made Hermione fall a little bit more in love with him.

"Like this," she confirmed. His boyish, lopsided grin returned and she couldn't help but smile back. When he pulled her close again, she went willingly, pressing her face into the shoulder of his robes and breathing deeply the elusive, spicy scent that was expensive cologne and Draco.

"Hermione?" he asked, his voice muffled because his nose was buried in her hair.

"Hmm?"

"Do you remember that article about the _Iunctus Mens_ Effect?" If she had possessed the will to remove herself from his embrace, she would have raised one eyebrow at him in an expression that said, 'What do you take me for?' As it was, he seemed to realize his mistake because he continued on without waiting for an answer. "Do you remember how it said that the memories we relive are the ones that define us? Usually bad, but sometimes good?"

"Yes," she replied quietly against his shoulder.

"Do you suppose this is one of the good ones?" She felt tears prick her eyes again, and inwardly shook her head at her utterly girliness as she pulled back to kiss him in response.

* * *

The Hogwarts Express was set to leave the next morning, and with exams over and the prospect of a long holiday ahead, the student body of Hogwarts was in the mood for socializing and food, preferably at the same time. Therefore, as Draco and Hermione approached the Great Hall while the end-of-term feast was in full swing, the noise was deafening even from the entrance hall with the enormous door firmly closed between them.

They stood in silence, staring at the towering doors that separated them from a thousand pairs of eyes that would gaze at them with dumb shock at best, and heartless judgment and hatred at worst. Hermione had never found those doors to be particularly ominous before, but they suddenly seemed to be the most daunting obstacle she had ever faced, and she had faced more than her share.

She glanced over at Draco to see him looking at the doors with a grim sort of determination on his not-quite-handsome, utterly compelling face. He felt her gaze on him and slanted those silver eyes over to her. A sardonic smirk twisted on his lips.

"I'm going to take great delight in all the different shades of purple the Weasel is going to turn," he said with a glint of devilish enjoyment in his eyes. Hermione glared at him in what she hoped was an appropriately chastising manner.

"Five points from Slytherin for insulting a prefect," she said softly as she straightened the silver clasp of his pristine black robes.

"Five points from Gryffindor," he responded in an equally gentle tone.

"For what?"

"Because I felt like it," he said quietly as he tucked her perpetually-wayward curl behind her ear. She gave a long-suffering sigh and watched with great joy as his lips briefly broke into the smile he reserved just for her before settling back into a detached, bemused smirk.

"Ready?" he asked, and only his eyes gave away the seriousness, the concern that she knew had inspired the question. She reached out and took his hand in hers and felt his strength pour through her.

"I am now," she replied. He nodded in his curt, formal way, and then began to walk toward the doors of the Great Hall in his unhurried, overly-confidant gait. As they walked, Hermione looked down at their hands. His long, pale, elegant fingers were intertwined with her own, and as she gazed at them, a single thought flooded her mind, making her smile.

They were linked.

* * *

**A/N:** And so it ends. Happily, OF COURSE, you silly things. What kind of girl do you take me for? 

Thank you all again for being the wonderful people you are. I hope to hear from all of you again soon when I begin posting my new fic, which will be a post-HBP Draco/Hermione story called _For Every Action_. You'll LOVE it, I promise. Also, I expect each and every one of you to review when I post the fic I wrote for the DMHGFicexchange, which I'm terribly proud of and want to hear your thoughts on because I'm considering a sequel.

And now, I must say goodbye. Kisses and hugs and unending love! Ciao, my darlings!

Katie


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